Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and Congress' Rahul Gandhi (File).
The fallout of the Congress' poor show in the Haryana election - which has included a stinging attack from ally Shiv Sena (UBT) before the Maharashtra election - rumbled on Tuesday, with the Samajwadi Party snubbing a seat-share request for by-polls to 10 Uttar Pradesh Assembly seats later this year.
Akhilesh Yadav's party - a high-profile member of the Congress-led INDIA bloc - has named candidates for six of the 10 seats. The number is significant - the Congress wanted to contest five of the seats, but the SP demurred, pointing to the two parties' performances in the April-June general election.
The SP won 37 of 62 seats it contested. The Congress contested 17 and won six. Given those numbers (the Congress also scored 109 fewer than the SP in the 2022 state poll) the offer was only three seats.
The Congress has expressed surprise over the list of six names.
The party's state-in-charge Avinash Pandey, said, "It is true... no information was given and there has been no talks with the INDIA alliance coordination committee yet. But, as far as announcement of seats and contesting elections is concerned, whatever decision the committee takes will be accepted by us."
"We are not overconfident in Uttar Pradesh," he said, stating work to "strengthen and empower the organisation" and prep for the by-polls had begun. "Possibilities (of alliance) always remain..."
The Samajwadi Party releasing its list of six candidates now - for a by-poll that has not yet been announced by the Election Commission - list doesn't just follow the Congress' horrid time in Haryana.
In Haryana the two parties held talks over sharing of seats - as did the Congress with Arvind Kejriwal's AAP - but no agreement was reached in either case, with the Congress' Bhupinder Hooda being blamed.
That failure to accommodate, as the Sena called it, is widely perceived as one of the reasons for the Congress losing a state that exit polls unanimously predicted it would win.
READ | "Arrogant, Overconfident": Allies Slam Congress Over Haryana Loss
But the two have been locked in talks over the UP by-polls for some time, underlining the rifts within an INDIA bloc that, in many cases, has failed to convince as a viable and sustainable non-BJP alternative.
The 10 UP by-polls, therefore, are a litmus test, at least for the Congress to continue as INDIA head.
The BJP has already begun planning, eager to claim as many of these seats as possible (not that it needs them to maintain its hold on the government) to build on momentum from Haryana.
There are still two Assembly elections left this year - Maharashtra and Jharkhand - with the all-important Delhi poll, where Mr Kejriwal's AAP will bid for a fourth straight win, scheduled for early next.
The SP's snub, meanwhile, has also been seen as a reminder of the Congress refusing to share seats for the Madhya Pradesh election. "... seems Congress doesn't want to partner with us", Mr Yadav had said.
As it did in Haryana this month, the SP then fielded its own candidates in Madhya Pradesh.
The Congress would be defeated in Madhya Pradesh and watch as the BJP flipped Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, losing three heartlands states in go to inviting scathing criticism from Mr Yadav.
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also attacked the Congress. Ms Banerjee's Trinamool also had seat-sharing disputes with the Congress - before the April-June general election. With an eye on poor past performances, she would not surrender more than two of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats to her 'ally'.
READ | "Defeat Of Congress, Not The People": Mamata On BJP's 3-State Win
The Bengal Chief Minister had said then that while the Congress had indeed won Telangana, it could have swept the other two states "if not for votes being taken by INDIA parties".
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