SP-Congress spat: UPCC president hits back at Akhilesh Yadav
Akhilesh Yadav's outburst over Congress not sharing seats in Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, UPCC president Ajay Rai hit back on Friday saying the SP cannot blame his party as it released its list of candidates before the Congress and was benefiting the BJP by contesting separately. Exposing a rift in the INDIA grouping, Yadav had on Thursday hinted that the Congress could get the same treatment from his party in Uttar Pradesh after it did not leave any seat for the SP in Madhya Pradesh.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) announced its third list of two candidates on Thursday night. With this, it has announced 33 candidates for the November 17 polls to the 230-member assembly in the BJP-governed state.
The Congress has announced its candidates for 229 seats.
According to insiders from both parties, the Congress had apparently agreed to leave six seats for SP in MP but the seat-sharing arrangement did not materialise.
Raising what he termed as the basic questions under the «gathbandhan dharma', Rai in a statement said the people of Uttar Pradesh want to know that „when our party was talking to SP about seats (in MP), why did Samajwadi Party release the list of its candidates before Congress released the list of candidates?“
Yadav reiterated in Shahjahanpur during the day that based on its performance in Madhya Pradesh, Congress had agreed to give six seats but not even the sitting SP MLA was given a ticket.
In the statement, Rai asked, „Akhilesh Yadav is himself saying that he wanted six seats, then what is the point of fielding candidates on 30 seats, who will benefit from it?“
»On one hand Akhilesh Yadav talks about saving the Constitution, fighting for the weaker sections, Dalits and backward classes, and on the other hand,
