Snubbing his son Akhilesh Yadav, SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav today declared candidates for 325 of the 403 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh in his absence and ruled out alliance with any party for the upcoming polls, virtually putting paid to prospects of a Bihar-type grand coalition.
Chief Minister Akhilesh, away on Bundelkhand tour, was clearly upset with the announcement made by Mulayam, along with his brother and party's state unit chief Shivpal, at a hurriedly-convened press conference here and said he will talk to his father regarding the choice of candidates.
In the list announced by him, Mulayam clearly ignored Akhilesh's objections to certain names, like Sigbatullah Ansari, brother of jailed gangster Mukhtar Ansari, and Atiq Ahmed who faces over 40 criminal cases including of murder.
The list, which includes 176 sitting MLAs, has no mention of names of several pro-Akhilesh ministers and MLAs including Ram Govind Chaudhary, Pawan Pandey and Arvind Sing Gope (all ministers).
"The list released today does not include names of certain candidates who are sure to win. I will take it up with the SP chief and tell him that some of them have done really good work and they should be given tickets," Akhilesh told reporters in Bundelkhand.
In a tit-for-tat action later in the evening, Akhilesh sacked the advisor to UP Housing Development Council Surabhi Shukla, who enjoyed the rank of a Minister of State, from her post. Her husband was named SP candidate for the Sultanpur seat, party sources said.
He has also convened a meeting of party leaders tomorrow to listen to their "grievances", sources said, adding legislators and office bearers who have been left out of the list of nominees are likely to attend it.
Significantly, Mulayam also ruled out projecting Akhilesh as the Chief Ministerial candidate, saying, "SP has no tradition of projecting anyone as its Chief Ministerial candidate. Some parties do it, and in the process bite the dust. In SP, the legislators elect their leader."
To a question, the SP chief said Akhilesh was "free to contest" from any seat he wanted.
Interestingly, after Shivpal "unilaterally" announced a list of 175 candidates recently, Akhilesh, who has been insisting on having a greater say in deciding the candidates, had submitted a "parallel list" of nominees for all 403 seats to Mulayam a few days ago.
Names of candidates for rest of the 78 seats would be announced soon, he said.
Mulayam also put an end to speculation of a tie-up between his party and Congress as part of forming a grand coalition on the pattern of last Assembly elections in Bihar.
"Samajwadi Party is not forming an alliance with anyone," he asserted.
Akhilesh had publicly made it clear that he was not averse to an alliance with Congress and that a such a tie-up would fetch over 300 seats.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, when asked yesterday by reporters about the possibility of tie-up with SP, had said, "It is a strategic issue. I cannot say anything about it in a press conference. If you come to me personally, I can whisper in your ear.
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