 "Samajwadi Party announces 3rd list of two candidates for MP Assembly polls")
The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Thursday announced its third list of two candidates for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections amid strained ties with its INDIA grouping ally, Congress over the formation of an alliance in the state.
With the new list, SP has announced 33 candidates for the November 17 elections to the 230-member assembly in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-governed state.
In its third list, SP has named Rajendra Prasad Patel and Pushpendra Kumar Ahirwar from Churhat in Sidhi district and Chandla (SC reserved) constituency in Chhatarpur district, respectively.
Rift between SP and Congress
Akhilesh had earlier accused the Congress of having "cheated" his party as their alliance talks for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections collapsed.
Akhilesh's statement came after Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai asked SP to withdraw from the MP fray in favour of the grand old party, saying the SP did not have any base there.
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Rai also said that as an INDIA bloc partner, the SP should rally behind the Congress if it wants to fight the ruling BJP in the state.
Reacting to this, Akhilesh said, "Which leader are you talking about? The state president [Ajay Rai] has no ‘haisiyat’ [status]. He was not there at the meeting [of INDIA] in Patna or Mumbai. What does he know about the INDIA alliance?"
"Congress should not get statements made by their 'chirkut' [small-time] leaders about our party," the Samajwadi Party chief said.
Akhilesh further slammed the Congress's MP heavyweights and ex-Chief Ministers, Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, charging that they kept the SP leaders waiting till 1 am, when they had gone to meet them for seat-sharing talks.
"This means that you're cheating other parties. These people are hand in glove with BJP. The Congress people are with BJP. If I had known that the alliance is not at the state level, then I wouldn't have sent SP leaders to Digvijay Singh ji or Kamal Nath ji," he said.
Akhilesh also claimed that the Congress camp had indicated that six seats could be allotted to the SP, which would include its lone sitting seat.
He added that if the INDIA alliance is only meant for the national elections and not the state polls, then the SP would pay back in the same coin over the Uttar Pradesh seat-sharing in the Lok Sabha polls.
Assembly polls will be held in Madhya Pradesh on November 17, while votes will be counted on December 3.