The Congress and the Samajwadi Party, which are partners in the Opposition bloc INDIA, have been lately in discord over seat-sharing for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly 2023. However, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala insisted on Thursday that the two parties were united in their fight against several issues faced by the country – at least ‘in principle’.
“We tried (to make an alliance), it was not about seats, the question was about which seats. The seats for which our people said that the Bharatiya Janata Party would be benefitted, there it could not happen,” Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath told ANI on Thursday.
“We talked, we tried our best, our people were not agreeing. Because the question was not how many seats, the question was which seats. We were not able to convince our people on the seats they wanted,” he added.
The Congress leader filed his nomination from the Chhindwara seat on Thursday.
The remarks came soon after SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said that his party had been ‘betrayed’ by the Congress.
“If the Congress didn’t want to give seats (in MP), then they should have said it before. Today, the SP is fighting only on seats where it has its own organisation. Now, after Madhya Pradesh, I know that the INDIA alliance is for the (parliamentary) elections on a national level,” Yadav was quoted as saying.
“If the Congress continues to behave like this, then who will trust them? If we fight with confusion in mind against the BJP, then we won’t succeed,” he added.
Yadav had also reminded the Congress that the SP had extended support to the Congress to form their government in Madhya Pradesh – not once but twice.
“We had one MLA, we were at number two in five seats. At the time when the Congress was in need, the Samajwadi Party was the first to support Congress. And the result was that the Congress government was formed in Madhya Pradesh” Akhilesh Yadav said earlier.
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Surjewala said on Thursday that the Congress and SP were ‘in principle’ fighting together over issues such as unemployment, corruption and inflation and that their ‘DNA for the Constitution and the nation’ is the same.
“We have been talking to our INDIA alliance friends from time to time. Sometimes coordination with them (on issues) gets established and sometimes it may not. But in principle and in terms of policies, we are fighting together in the country on the issues of unemployment, inflation and corruption,” he said.
Madhya Pradesh will go to the polls on November 17 and the counting will take place on December 3. In the 2018 Madhya Pradesh election, the SP contested 52 seats and won one seat, Bijawar, and finished second on five, securing 1.30 percent votes.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Updated: 26 Oct 2023, 07:20 PM IST