NEW DELHI, January 18: Seat-Sharing glitches among United Front partners became more complicated with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav today announcing an electoral tie-up with Jagannath Mishra's Bihar Jan Congress (BJC) in Bihar.Mulayam's understanding with Mishra will mean that the SP will bargain for more seats from the Janata Dal in the State so as to be able to share them with the BJC.
The SP and JD are already locked in an acrimonious tussle for seats in Uttar Pradesh with Mulayam in no mood to accede to the demands of the JD. The SP announced its candidates for three more seats (Meerut, Bulandshahr and Aligarh) in the State today, bringing the total to 38. The two parties have major seat-sharing problems in Rajasthan also.
Mulayam's latest move comes on the eve of the UF core committee meeting to be held in Hyderabad tomorrow, prior to the coalition's inaugural campaign rally. Seat-sharing disputes are expected to dominate the meeting which is also scheduled to finalise the UF's common
manifesto.
At its last meeting, the core committee had authorised CPI(M) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet to arbitrate the disputes among the coalition constituents. Mishra and Mulayam jointly announced the understanding between their respective parties, saying that the pact had been reached with the aim of cornering the BJP-Samta Party combine in Bihar. They hoped that their tie-up would not create animosity among UF partners over sharing of seats in the State. They are to begin their joint campaign in the State from Darbhanga and Samastipur on Feburary 3.
The new development will help the SP chief bargain for as many seats as he would like in Uttar Pradesh where the JD will have to play second fiddle to his party. In Bihar, on the other hand, the SP is the junior partner in the UF vis-a-vis the JD and the Left parties.
That the JD-SP dispute in UP is far from being amicably resolved was evident from JD parliamentary board chairman Ram Vilas Paswan's remarks today. He said that the JD had
finalised the names of candidates and the constituencies from where they would contest in UP. "These are constituencies where other UF partners had not fielded candidates in the 1996 elections," he said. In an oblique reference to Mulayam's aggressive stance, Paswan said that the United Front leaders should realise the virtues of having a practical approach towards seat-sharing, both in UP and Bihar.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
