Date:28/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/28/stories/2008122860100800.htm

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Samajwadi Party-Congress seat-sharing talks to resume

Special Correspondent

SP has drawn up list of 78
Congress has given its list to SP

NEW DELHI: The Samajwadi Party on Saturday gave a nudge to the stalled seat-sharing talks with the Congress for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

The SP maintains that negotiations have entered the home stretch.

After two rounds, talks did not progress in the last few months as both parties made competing claims on a few constituencies.

“The Congress wants those seats where some of our dependable and popular leaders are sitting MPs. Practical difficulties are there, which I think would be resolved soon,” SP general secretary Amar Singh told journalists after a meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi here.

Mr. Singh said he had broached the issue with AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Friday night and they would address it next week.

He, however, maintained that the SP had drawn up a list of 78 candidates for the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, reiterating that it left Rae Bareli and Amethi, now held by Ms. Sonia Gandhi and Mr. Rahul Gandhi.

“We are here for supporting the Congress and not to surrender before it,” Mr. Singh said.

On its part, the Congress said nothing was finalised at the brief meeting on Saturday. Party sources said the talks would continue with the team that includes Mr. Gandhi, Digvijay Singh and PCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi.

After the last round of talks, Mr. Digvijay Singh, AICC general secretary in-charge of party affairs in the State, said a list of the constituencies the Congress was seeking had been given to the SP and it was for that party to respond.

The criterion adopted for seat sharing was that besides the nine seats it has in the current Lok Sabha, the Congress could vie for those constituencies where it finished second behind a party other than the SP.

The party sources said there was little dispute over 15-odd seats, but others remained a bone of contention. The Congress is seeking Rampur, Pratapgarh and Farrukhabad, held by the SP.

The SP is not keen on conceding to the Congress seats for Raj Babbar and Beni Prasad Verma, MPs who have since fallen out with its (SP) leaders. Mr. Babbar was elected from Agra, but it has become a reserved seat after delimitation. Mr, Verma represents Kaiserganj.

Domariaganj, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshar, Sultanpur, Kushi Nagar and Bareilly, as also Muzzafnagar and Salempur, are seats over which also there is a tug of war, but of lesser intensity, according to the sources.