The Samajwadi Party is prepared to make any sacrifice to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party from coming to power again at the Centre and is confident that its grand alliance with Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya lok Dal and Congress will materialise well before the 2019 lok Sabha election.

SP president Akhilesh Yadav said here on Sunday that panic was growing in the BJP with the lok Sabha elections coming nearer and the ruling party was demoralised after its crushing defeat in the bypolls to three lok Sabha seats and one Assembly seat in UP.  

Yadav said the BJP had realised the potential of the united opposition and it knew that the alliance of four parties taking shape in UP would prove to be the biggest stumbling block in realising its dream of retaining power at the Centre in 2019.

“The SP is working very hard to make this alliance a reality as soon as possible and I am willing to make any sacrifice in seat adjustments to achieve the ultimate goal of unseating the BJP,” the SP president said.

To reach a broad consensus within the party, the SP president has already sought written opinion of the members of party’s national executive about the proposed alliance with BSP, RlD and Congress.

Significantly, Akhilesh has also tried to buy peace within the family and party by projecting his father Mulayam Singh Yadav as a prime ministerial candidate if the opposition parties get majority in the 2019 general election. 

Akhilesh is also in touch with RlD leader Jayant Chaudhary for negotiations on seat adjustment. 

Samajwadi Party has expressed its willingness to give three seats to RlD from its quota on the basis of the 2014 polls in which SP was second in 31 lok Sabha constituencies and won five seats. 

The party is also in touch with BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra through Ram Gopal Yadav, Akhilesh’s uncle and party leader in Rajya Sabha. The negotiations with the BSP are being held between Ram Gopal Yadav and Satish Mishra.

The last meeting between Akhilesh and Mayawati took place in Bengaluru in May this year during the swearing-in of Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister. The ceremony had turned out to be a grand show of opposition unity with almost the entire opposition lining up on the stage in an expression of solidarity against the Narendra Modi government’s policies.

Samajwadi Party has started the process of finalising its candidates for those seats where the party was placed second in the 2014 lok Sabha polls. Akhilesh has announced that he would contest from Kannauj, the constituency at present represented by his wife Dimple in the lok Sabha. 

He also announced that his father and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav would contest from Mainpuri. Mulayam’s grand nephew, Tej Pratap Yadav, who is the son-in-law of lalu Prasad Yadav, will contest from Azamgarh. Akhilesh announced that his wife will not contest the 2019 elections.

Mayawati’s BSP has also started preparations for selecting its candidates, beginning with those seats where the party was placed second in the 2014 elections and the seats which it hopes to get from Akhilesh under the alliance arrangement. 

Mayawati herself is keen to contest this time to make herself available as a candidate for the prime ministerial post should the other opposition parties agree on a ‘Dalit ki Beti’.

Mayawati has already given the green signal to 10 candidates to go ahead with preparations to contest the lok Sabha polls. She has also taken action against those who were damaging the chances of potential candidates. 

At the same time, she still insists that she will only accept alliance if her party is given a respectable number of seats.

Although RlD president Ajit Singh has announced that he will not contest the election due to old age, his son Jayant Chaudhary is all set to contest from Mathura. 

The party had won a historic by-election at Kairana recently. It is learnt that Akhilesh is not willing to give more than 6-8 seats to Congress, which is, however, demanding more than 10 seats. He recently said that Congress did not have any significant presence in UP; neither in terms of seats nor votes.