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SP-Cong alliance falling apart? UP govt minister admits bickering over Akhilesh-Rahul's 'dosti'

Kashmir Times. Dated: 2/23/2017 1:56:31 PM

Lucknow, Feb 22 (Agencies): Midway through the seven-round polls, cracks seem to have appeared in the much-talked about Samajwadi Party and Congress alliance even as most senior party leaders remain tight-lipped and refused to divulge anything.
However, on Tuesday, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, known to be close to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, spilled the beans and admitted about the bickering going on over SP-Congress alliance among party leaders.
"There is no spark in SP-Congress alliance. We (Samajwadi Party) could have easily gone solo in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. There was no need to form this alliance," Raja Bhaiya told News18 today.
On the other hand, Akhilesh Yadav, who addressed an election rally in Bahraich today, said, "If friendship is done with a big heart, it stays but if you befriend a miser bond is unlikely to last."
Here, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister referred to seat sharing deal between Samajwadi Party and Congress in state elections.
Though Akhilesh did not mention anything on reports of fissures in the alliance, his statement clearly hinted about the cracks that have started developing among the two parties, barely a month after the tie-up was forged.
Akhilesh, recently in an interview to a daily, admitted that the grand alliance was an outcome of the infighting within the Yadav family.
"If the Yadav family feud had not cropped up and some political decisions didn’t have to be taken, then this alliance may not have happened. The time and circumstances were such that we had to have this alliance," Akhilesh had reportedly said during the interview with The Hindu.
Congress, who campaigned in in Raebareli's Unchahar constituency days back, surprisingly came out with a new poster that read, "UP ko yeh saath pasand hai, lekin Unchahar ko haath pasand hai."
Unchahar is a constituency where the Congress and Samajwadi Party have both fielded candidates, thus creating much confusion among its voters.
One Unchahar congress worker without being named complained about Samajwadi Party not giving due respect to them considering the stature of the party. "Both Akhilesh and Mulayam have featured on posters of Congress, however, Samajwadi Party does not have Rahul Gandhi ji's photo on their posters," he said.
Whereas workers of Samajwadi Party feel that Congress needed the alliance more than they did, another media report claimed.
Congress spokesperson in Uttar Pradesh Zeeshan Haidar however rejects reports of any tiff and told Firstpost that "it is a negligible issue and he is sure one of the two would win in the seats in question."
"There were other seats too where both parties had fielded candidates and we have sent show cause notices to some. But in some cases, by the time we could arrive at a conclusion, the last date of withdrawal had already passed," Haidar was quoted by Firstpost.