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New Delhi: The Samajwadi Party on Wednesday refuted media reports that its ally, Jayant Chaudhary’s RLD, is mulling an alliance with the ruling BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The rumours, particularly disturbing for the Opposition’s INDIA bloc in light of recent exits, came weeks after Akhilesh Yadav declared bonhomie and an elusive seat-sharing agreement with Chaudhary on social media platforms.
Samajwadi Party MP ST Hasan claimed the reports that RLD was in touch with the BJP for an alliance were false.
“These are all false reports. From what I know, we have confirmed an alliance with RLD,” he told PTI.
Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal Yadav said the BJP is trying to mislead people by spreading false news.
“I know Jayant (Singh) very well. They are secular people. The BJP is only misleading the media. They (RLD) will remain in the INDIA alliance and defeat the BJP,” he said.
The development is a grim reminder for the INDIA bloc of Nitish Kumar’s exit last month. What started as a rumour by the media became a reality sooner than expected as Nitish Kumar dumped the INDIA bloc and joined hands with BJP-led NDA.
Mamata Banerjee has also been sniping at its INDIA bloc partner Congress since she announced that her Trinamool will contest the elections alone, prompting speculation of an existential crisis for the anti-BJP alliance.
What the media reports say about Jayant Chaudhary
India Today reported citing sources that the BJP has offered RLD four Lok Sabha seats in UP — Kairana, Baghpat, Mathura, and Amroha.
Akhilesh Yadav had offered seven, but reportedly not the seats Chaudhary wanted.
It reported that Chaudhary vmet with a senior BJP leader in Delhi on Tuesday.
He also appears to be distancing himself from the INDIA bloc. He recently postponed a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Chhaprauli, it said, adding Prime Minister Narendra Modi might attend the event if the alliance talk is successful.
Akhilesh Yadav’s party has unilaterally declared 16 seats in Uttar Pradesh. He proposed 11 seats for the Congress.
RLD and SP contested the 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh as allies. The alliance proved to be beneficial for both the parties — the SP 111 seats while the RLD bagged 8 seats.
In the 2019 general elections, RLD was part of the SP-BSP alliance. It contested from Mathura, Baghpat and Muzaffar Nagar seats but lost all three seats. The SP and the BSP won 5 and 10 seats respectively.
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