The Congress and the Samajwadi Party are ready to take their political friendship to the next level.
The Samajwadi Party, according to sources, has decided not to field its candidates in Rae Bareli and Amethi against Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi. This is being termed as a goodwill gesture since the Congress did not field its candidate against Dimple Yadav in Kannauj and paved the way for her unopposed election to the seat.
In 2009, the SP had not put up its candidate against Mrs Sonia Gandhi.
According to party sources, SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav has decided to withdraw the SP observers appointed for the Rae Bareli and Amethi parliamentary seats without further delay.
“The party had appointed observers to all 58 Lok Sabha seats where we had lost in 2009 but now Mr Yadav has said that the observers for Rae Bareli and Amethi must be recalled. The party will not contest these two seats that are considered to be the bastions of Congress high command,” said a party functionary.
Political analysts feel that this is a step towards consolidating the SP-Congress friendship which could prove beneficial to the Akhilesh Yadav government in UP.
For the Congress, this is good news but the party had faced rout in both the constituencies in the recent Assembly polls giving a clear message that all was certainly not well in Rae Bareli and Amethi.
“The Congress is no longer a threat to us in UP and this has been proved in the Assembly polls and now the local bodies’ elections. However, we want a warm rapport with the Congress which heads the UPA government and need their support for the development of UP since Akhilesh’s future depends on the success of his government,” the functionary explained.
The eagerness of the Congress to keep the Samajwadis in good humour is evident from the fact that it sanctioned a package worth `45,000 crore for UP. Former chief minister Mayawati kept clamouring for a similar package during her entire tenure but never got one while Mr Akhilesh Yadav managed to get one within three-and-a-half months of being in power.
A UPCC spokesman, meanwhile, said that if the SP had decided not to field a candidate against the party leaders, it was a welcome move and could lead to greater understanding between the two parties.