The Hindu : SP list for U.P. shuts door on Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 23, 2004

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National

SP list for U.P. shuts door on Congress

By Our Special Correspondent

Film star Jayaprada who has been given the Rampur seat in Uttar Pradesh by the Samajwadi Party with the party's general secretary, Amar Singh, at a press conference in New Delhi on Monday. — Photo: Anu Pushkarna

NEW DELHI, MARCH 22. The Samajwadi Party today shut the door on the possibility of a last minute seat adjustment with the Congress by releasing a list of 63 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh.

The SP is clearly intent on giving no quarter to the Congress. It has even put up candidates against the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and her son, Rahul Gandhi, from Rae Bareli and Amethi respectively.

The SP has an electoral alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal led by Ajit Singh in Uttar Pradesh and has decided to leave 10 of the 80 seats in the State to it.

Though the SP will contest 70 seats, today it announced the names of candidates for only 63 seats, holding back the rest of the names for "strategic reasons." These seats include Amethi, Ballia, Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Shahabad, Fatehpur and Mainpuri. The Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, is expected to contest the Mainpuri seat in Central Uttar Pradesh.

The list of SP candidates released today by the party general secretary, Amar Singh, has few surprises except for the decision to field the former Rajya Sabha MP, Jaya Prada, from Rampur. She was earlier a member of the Telegu Desam Party and had recently joined the SP. The party has denied ticket to 17 of its sitting MPs and it includes the names of 16 former MPs, 2 Ministers and three MLAs.

Apart from Jaya Prada, the other prominent names that figure in the list released today are: Raj Babbar from Agra, the Chief Minister's son Akhilesh Yadav from Kannauj, Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav from Sambhal, the former Union Minister Saleem Sherwani from Badaun and Beni Prasad Verma from Kaiserganj.

It is also evident from the list of names released today that the SP will not be a part of any scheme to field joint Opposition candidates against the top guns of the BJP including the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, from Lucknow, and the Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, from Allahabad. The SP's candidate from Lucknow is the little heard of Madhu Gupta, while contrary to media reports that cine star Jaya Bachchan might be asked to take on Mr. Joshi, the party has once again given the ticket to Reoti Raman Singh who lost to Dr. Joshi in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections.

The other names that figure in the list include Islam Sabir (Bareilly), Ram Murty Singh (Shahjahanpur), Mohan Singh (Deoria), Chandra Pal Singh (Jhansi), Ramji Lal Suman (Ferozabad-Res), Rashid Masood (Saharanpur) and C.N. Singh Machilshahar.

Speaking to newspersons after releasing the list, Amar Singh expressed the hope that the SP-RLD alliance would win a majority of the seats in U.P. "We will not only win maximum seats in the State, but it will also not be possible for any secular formation to form a government at the Centre without our help," he said.

Mr. Singh blamed the Congress for the failure of the two parties to come to an understanding in the State. The Congress had spurned the SP's offer of a tie-up and had only turned to it at the last moment after being turned down by the Bahujan Samaj Party. "While we were offering them an alliance, they were dining and feting Mayawati. Only after she ditched them did they turn to us," he said.

He said that the senior Congress leader, Arjun Singh's statement on the eve of the BSP rally in Lucknow earlier this month had destroyed whatever possibility there was for a tie-up between the two parties. "He slapped us politically," Mr. Singh said.

Initially, the SP was not inclined towards putting up a candidate against Ms. Gandhi. "We were under the impression that she will contest from Amethi. Since we have already announced our candidate from Rae Bareli, nothing can be done about it now," he said.

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