Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, top leaders of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) respectively, extended their alliance to Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand and shut the door to the Congress yet again on a pre-poll alliance.
The BSP will now contest for 26 seats in Madhya Pradesh and the remaining three – Balaghat, Thikri and Khajuraho will be contested by the Samajwadi Party. In Uttarakhand, the SP will contest in Pauri Garhwal while BSP will contest from four other seats.
This development comes after last week’s announcement of seat sharing mathematics between the two parties in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP will vie for 38 seats and the SP will contest 37 seats in the state indicating the absence of alliance-formation with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. There will however be no candidates from either party contesting for the seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli – traditionally considered to be Congress strongholds.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had emerged with a clear majority winning all five seats in Uttarakhand and 27 seats, just short of the full count by two, in Madhya Pradesh. However, after the recent state election victory of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, the party is expected to perform better in the national elections scheduled in May.
