Rashtriya Lok Dal vice-president Jayant Chaudhary met Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav here on Wednesday and held discussions on seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The meeting took place at the SP headquarters here.
“It was a good discussion on seat-sharing with Akhilesh and you will know the outcome soon. The talks were positive and all issues were addressed,” Chaudhary told reporters after the meeting.
On January 12, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party had announced a tie-up for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and said that smaller parties would be accommodated.
The RLD had earlier said talks for finding a place in the alliance were on.
Chaudhary has demanded six of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP. The SP and the BSP have decided to contest 38 seats each, leaving two seats for allies and two seats — Amethi and Rae Bareli — for Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
The SP-BSP alliance has left only two seats for other parties. This has put a question mark on the electoral future of the UP’s next biggest regional contestant, RLD, leaving the party in want of further negotiations ahead of Lok Sabha elections.
“The numbers are not final, we are still negotiating with the alliance leaders. Two seats are for ‘others’. RLD is a partner, we fought with SP in Kairana (bypoll). We will get more seats. Mayawati is unlikely to be flexible and give up any of her 38 seats, so we will reach out to Akhilesh. We may get more seats from SP’s kitty,” said a RLD leader.
According to sources, the SP-BSP alliance is ready to give two seats to the RLD — Kairana held by the party and Baghpat, the home turf of RLD president Ajit Singh.
RLD is demanding 6 seats in the early stages. The Jat-dominated outfit is likely to settle for one more seat — Mathura from where Jayant Choudhury would contest.
The sources said that Mayawati had already conveyed to Akhilesh that SP, if it so desired, could give seats from its quota to the RLD and now it was possible that Mathura could be given to RLD from SP share.
As the SP-BSP alliance is keen to have RLD in the alliance due to its influence over the Jat community in western UP, it is expected that SP may accommodate the party even by sacrificing one seat from its quota of 38 seats.
On the other hand, the Congress is also expecting that the RLD would join them in the UP polls. The lone MLA of RLD in Rajasthan is a minister in the state government after contesting the assembly polls in alliance with Congress.
Speculation is rife that RLD candidates could contest the election on SP symbol or vice-versa as done in the Kairana bypoll when a SP leader contested on RLD symbol.
