SP, BSP identifying seats to be contested

| | Lucknow
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SP, BSP identifying seats to be contested

Wednesday, 16 January 2019 | PNS | Lucknow

With both the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party crossing the major hurdle of seat sharing for the Lok Sabha elections, the leaders of both the parties are now putting their heads together for identifying seats to be contested by both the parties. The alliance between the SP and BSP in UP is seen as a monumental leap of faith between two sworn rivals. Samajwadi Party sources claim that it is highly likely that this alliance may now extend to other states as well like Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. 

As per the broad understanding reached between the two parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party besides contesting a majority of the 17 Lok Sabha seats reserved for the Scheduled Caste will contest most of the seats in Western UP, while the Samajwadi Party will contest eastern UP constituencies.

The father-son duo of Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav are set to contest Lok Sabha polls from Kannauj and Mainpuri, respectively. Mayawati may pick a seat too to re-enter the Lok Sabha after 15 years. She has won twice from Akbarpur seat in east UP, the last time she contested in 2004. 

The key seats like Bulandshahr, Agra, Bijnor, Meerut, Saharanpur, Nagina and Aligarh are expected to be contested by the BSP while seats like Etawah, Lucknow, Moradabad, Gorakhpur, Allahabad, Kanpur and Azamgarh are expected to be contested by the SP. Baghpat and Mathura seats have been left for RLD’s Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary. The SP-BSP alliance may contest these two seats too if RLD refuses their offer and goes to align with the Congress in UP. 

Akhilesh Yadav had already said that he was willing to make a compromise for lesser seats but said he was grateful to Mayawati for making both parties equal partners. This is also seen as a message to voters and workers of both sides that no partner was inferior –– hence aid and enable vote transfer to either camp. The BSP has identified seats where Dalit-Muslim voters are enough to help it win with some vote transfer from the Yadavs while the SP will bank on seats where the Yadav-Muslim population is decisive, along with some Dalit backing. 

The SP has been electorally more successful than the BSP in UP both in the 2014 and 2017 elections. The BSP had drawn a blank during 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP had been attacking the proposed alliance in the past asking if SP workers would accept lesser seats for their party compared to the BSP in an alliance. The equal-seat deal hence silences that critique from the BJP. SP leaders said: “Who gets which seat also depends on who finished second on which seat in 2014 and 2009 as well as considering either party’s traditional strengths in terms of vote.

While the SP had won five seats in the 2014 LS polls and finished second on 31 seats, the BSP won no seat but finished second in 33 seats. Of the two seats where the BSP finished second, the SP won the Gorakhpur and Phulpur seats in the byelections. The biggest strength of the alliance is that it will bring the Dalit-Muslim-Yadav axis to the fore in the state.

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