Uttar Pradesh, Jan 17: The Congress on Tuesday announced that it would tie up with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the coming Uttar Pradesh polls.
The development comes a day after the Akhilesh Yadav faction of the SP retained the party’s ‘cycle’ symbol.
“There will be a Congress-SP alliance in the coming U.P. elections,” senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said.
Details of the alliance would be released in the coming days, he said, but underlined that the State Chief Minister would be the leader of the alliance.
“Details about it [alliance] will be decided in coming days. For now, we can say there will be Congress-SP alliance under the leadership of Akhilesh Yadav,” he said.
As for the possibility of enlarging the alliance with the participation of more parties, Mr. Azad was non-committal.
“For now it is Congress-SP alliance. [We] will think about Mahagathbandhan in the coming days,” he told ANI.
Akhilesh meets Mulayam
Mr. Akhilesh Yadav described his ties with his father as “unbreakable“. During the father-son meeting, Mr. Mulayam reportedly asked Mr. Akhilesh to retain about 40 candidates selected by his camp.
“Over 90 per cent of the candidates in both the lists are common. We will finalise the list of candidates soon,” Mr. Akhilesh said.
“I will take Netaji [Mulayam Singh Yadav] along...my relation with him is unbreakable,” he added.
“I was confident that I will get cycle. Little time is left. It’s a big responsibility and I will take everyone with us.”
Sheila Dikshit ready to withdraw
Meanwhile, the Congress’ chief ministerial face Sheila Dikshit said she would want to gracefully bow out as a candidate. She said, “I will like to gracefully withdraw as there cannot be two chief ministerial candidates for the elections.”
Amid the fast-paced developments, Sahibabad MLA Amar Pal Sharma, who won the last polls on the BSP ticket, joined the Congress in the presence of Mr. Azad.
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