Congress Beats Akhilesh Yadav To It, Announces Uttar Pradesh Alliance

Lucknow: Akhilesh Yadav, having set aside his family drama, is moving on to the next order of business ahead of the election: stapling together the alliance that he believes will help him counter rivals Mayawati and the BJP in Uttar Pradesh which begins voting next month. A deal with the Congress will be announced "in a day or two," he told NDTV today. The Congress pre-empted him, declaring the collaboration at a press conference in Delhi today, though it said the details are being finalized. Key among those: how many of the state's 403 seats will be allotted to the Congress and to another potential partner, Ajit Singh's RLD.

Mr Yadav, 43, wants another term as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, but has been preoccupied with a confrontation with his father, Mulayam Singh, whose power play included declaring candidates for the election without inputs from his son.

Yesterday, the issue of who is boss was decided by the Election Commission which ruled that Akhilesh Yadav has the backing of most of the Samajwadi Party and is therefore in control of the legit version of the outfit and not a spin-off as his father had alleged. The victory entitles the young politician to the use of the party symbol of the cycle, easily recognized by voters. Determined to maintain his line of maximum respect for his father, Mr Yadav went to visit him as soon as the case was decided in his favour and then tweeted a photo of them together.

He confirmed today that he is closing a deal with the Congress, which could expand to include smaller regional parties like Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal or RLD. Rahul Gandhi, who is the Vice President of the Congress, has an established political bromance with Akhilesh Yadav. Recently, they flexed their amity if not their vocabulary, with Mr Gandhi terming Mr Yadav "a good boy" who shot off the same phrase in return.
 
Mr Yadav had pushed unsuccessfully for his father to agree to a tie-up with the Congress, offering the claim that a partnership could help them get about 300 of the state's 403 seats, largely by consolidating the significant Muslim vote. The alliance is expected to allot about 75-80 seats for Congress candidates. Sources say that Mr Gandhi and Mr Yadav will address rallies together; ditto for Mr Yadav's wife, Dimple, who is a parliamentarian, and Mr Gandhi's sister, Priyanka.

"In our area, in each election, the Congress candidate does manage to get about 5,000 to 10,000 votes, so if both parties were to form an alliance, it would definitely transfer those votes to us and vice versa," said Shakeel Ahemd Qureshi, a 66-year-old Samajwadi Party worker from Western Uttar Pradesh.

For the Congress, whose lack of firepower in Uttar Pradesh has been embarrassingly visible, riding piggyback with Mr Yadav offers a chance at some sort of political rejuvenation. As soon as Mr Yadav was declared in custody of the Samjawadi Party yesterday, enthused Congress workers put up posters that were giddy with delight over the alliance that is to follow.

In the alliance that Akhilesh Yadav plans, the Samajwadi Party is likely to contest about 300 of UP's 403 assembly seats, while the Congress could contest about 75, and the RLD and other parties could contest 25-30. It follows the Bihar experiment, where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was re-elected after strategically partnering with old rival Lalu Yadav's RJD and the Congress.

Elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 11. Votes will be counted on March 11.