Lucknow: A day after two senior Congress leaders visited Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati’s residence in Lucknow but were denied an audience, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday stated that his party has prepared its cadre to take complete control of booths in all 403 assembly constituencies of Uttar Pradesh.
Although Akhilesh said this was done to ensure that SP cadre extend full organisational support to alliance partners on any seat as and when needed, political circles view the move as a subtle hint that SP is poll-ready on all 403 seats and could go solo in assembly polls if things do not work out as desired.
“In order to form a PDA government in 2027, we have thoroughly prepared our cadre across all 403 assembly constituencies. We want that whichever party enters into an alliance with us and contests elections, our workers at the booth level extend the support of our strong organisational structure,” Akhilesh said while addressing functionaries at the party headquarters on Wednesday evening. “This has been done because we have always maintained that winning a seat is more important than the number of seats that SP shares with its alliance partner,” he added.
The SP chief’s carefully worded statement gains significance in light of Congress MP Tanuj Punia and the party’s Scheduled Caste cell national president Rajendra Pal Gautam’s visit to Mayawati’s residence in Lucknow on Tuesday. The BSP supremo reportedly declined to meet the two. On Wednesday, the Congress issued a show-cause notice to the two leaders for visiting Mayawati without authorisation.
Interestingly, on Tuesday itself, speaking at an event organised by a Hindi daily, Akhilesh Yadav had expressed confidence in the INDIA bloc taking on the BJP in UP polls and stated that seat-sharing with alliance partners had never been an issue for SP, emphasising that winning a seat was more important than the number of seats while finalising alliances.
While the show-cause notice suggests that the two Congress functionaries acted on their own accord, political experts think otherwise. The development occurred when Congress MP Rahul Gandhi was in Rae Bareli, barely 90 km from Lucknow, leading many to question if it was a coincidence.
“How can two Dalit functionaries, including one based in Delhi, suddenly decide to do the unthinkable—visit Mayawati without any prior appointment or nod from their own party?” wondered a political analyst. “I don’t think the notice would have been issued had they succeeded in meeting Mayawati,” he said, suggesting that a successful meeting would have allowed Congress to bargain for a better seat-sharing deal with SP in UP polls.
Sources said SP strategists have taken a serious note of the development but opted not to vocalise it after the party president decided to take things in his stride, particularly after the two Congress functionaries were served show-cause notices.
