Escalating the war of nerves with the Congress, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday launched the election campaign in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav, in a terse message to the Congress, has already stated that the Samajwadi Party is not seeking  but giving Lok Sabha seats to the partners of INDIA bloc.
Both the Congress and Samajwadi party are members of the opposition alliance INDIA and presently engaged in negotiating seat sharing  in Uttar Pradesh  for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
On a two-day visit to MP, Akhilesh Yadav addressed a meeting in Sirmour assembly constituency in Rewa district, 127 kms from Prayagraj. Yadav, who is the leader of opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, will hold several meetings with the party leadership in MP.
The SP has fielded former BJP  MLA Laxman Tewari as its candidate. He will also hold meetings with party workers in Khajuraho before returning to Lucknow on Thursday.
SP sources said that the party is preparing to fight all seats in the state where the contest is expected to be between the BJP and the Congress.  Despite the SP and Congress being part of the INDIA bloc, these two parties seem to be heading for a fight in MP, Chhattisgarh, and other states where polling is scheduled later this year.
In Chhattisgarh, the SP is mulling over contesting as many as 40 seats out of a total of 90 assembly segments.
A senior SP leader said that the reason behind the SP contesting assembly elections in MP and Chattisgarh later this year is the objective to make a hard bargain in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections.
The Samajwadi Party has so far announced candidates for six seats in MP, including Dhauhani (ST) and Chitrangi (ST) in Siddi district in the state’s Vindhya region; and Mehgaon, Bhander (SC), Niwari, and Rajnagar in Bundelkhand and Gwalior-Chambal belts, all located near the UP border.
Of these six seats, the Congress won three and finished second on two in the 2018 assembly elections. SP sources said that the alliance between their party and the Congress is for Lok Sabha and not for state assembly elections.
Electoral battle in Madhya Pradesh is bipolar where the BJP and Congress are the main contenders. Besides the Samajwadi party, the Bahujan Samaj Party has also contested all the assembly polls in the last over two decades. However, the BSP is yet to announce candidates for the MP assembly elections.
Among the issues the party is likely to raise in the MP polls are a monthly allowance of over Rs 3,000 each for the unemployed youth, government guarantee for business loans for the youth, and loan waiver for farmers.  The SP will also raise the issue of caste-based census in the state. Though no party won a clear majority in the state in 2018 state assembly elections, the Congress emerged as the single-largest party with 114 seats in the 230-member House, followed by the BJP with 109 seats.