Senior SP leaders like Angad Chaudhary, Chinta Yadav and Samad Ansari are contesting the polls under the Congress’s hand symbol
Even as the electorate in Uttar Pradesh (UP) keeps political parties guessing, the Congress, which has been handed over 105 seats by major ally Samajwadi Party (SP) out of a total of 403 seats, feels that the going would be tough in at least 40 seats. So much so, that in the seats allocated to it in the sixth and seventh phase of polls, the leaders admit difficulty in finding candidates from the party cadres who have any chances of winning or making it tough for their opponents.
Therefore, in as many as 15 seats, it has handed over tickets to SP candidates who were vying for tickets from their own party, but were left high and dry after the parties tied up. Senior SP leaders like Angad Chaudhary, Chinta Yadav and Samad Ansari are contesting the polls under the Congress’s hand symbol. They deny that they have switched sides. Party leaders also say that it was felt that they had more “winnability” than the local Congress leaders, who were dropped at the last minute.
From Varanasi North, which was conceded to the Congress, the party’s district youth president Zafarullah Zafar was promised a ticket. But after it was felt that he may not be able to effectively woo the local weavers and influential Ansari community, the ticket was handed over to SP leader Samad Ansari. Zafar had no choice but to accept his fate and accompany Ansari to file nominations. Party leaders felt that Ansari is a heavyweight who had held this seat from 2007 to 2012. There is a similar story in Kadipur, where Angad Chaudhary, an SP leader, is contesting on the Congress symbol. Another SP leader, Sanjay Pandey, is contesting from Vishwanathganj on a Congress ticket. His father Rajaram Pandey had won the seat in 2012 for the SP, but he passed away in late 2013.
Out of 105 seats, the Congress feels that it had to reinvent itself in as many as 47 seats, as it had become non-existent there over the past 27 years. Party strategists now believe that in the quest to wrest more seats from the SP, negotiations didn’t focus on quality seats.
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