Repeated assertion of ‘respectable share of seats’ as a condition for joining the secular ‘mahagathbandhan’ by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has placed the Samajwadi Party in a quandary.

Soon after Rajya Sabha election in March and later on last Sunday, Mayawati asserted that her party would join the anti-BJP secular front only if it was given a respectable number of seats to contest. “Earlier, we felt that she was pressuring the Congress for Assembly seats in poll-bound Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Now, it appears that Mayawati has national ambitions and wants to have a nationwide alliance with the Congress, while the Samajwadi Party will be a partner only in Uttar Pradesh,” said a Samajwadi Party leader.

The SP leader clarified that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav was not concerned about Mayawati’s stance as he had made up his mind to offer a larger share of seats to the BSP. “Akhilesh has already said that of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP, he will offer 36 seats to the BSP and contest only 32 seats,” he reminded.

The SP leader added that the Congress, which had expressed interest in joining the grand alliance, asked for at least 9 seats.

For the Congress, Amethi and Rae Bareli seats represented by Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi respectively are non-negotiable. In addition, the Congress wants to contest from Kushinagar and Saharanpur. But the allocation depends on Congress performance in the upcoming Assembly poll in five states.

The fourth partner ally in the equation is the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is likely to get three seats - Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat and Kairana. The last seat was wrested by the RLD from the BJP in a bypoll recently. The RLD wants to contest Mathura seat too, but a consensus is yet to be reached.

A source close to RLD chief Ajit Singh said: “Initially, when neither the Congress nor RLD were in the picture, Mayawati suggested that the SP and BSP would contest 40 seats each. But after Kairana bypoll, she ceded some space for the Congress but made it clear that any seat for the RLD or other parties like Nishad Party would have to be given from SP’s kitty.”

The Samajwadi Party is, however, confident that broader contours of the alliance will emerge only after Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Assembly polls.