It was the winter of 2017 and Netaji, the late Mulayam Singh Yadav, suggested his son and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav to not commit the cardinal mistake of tying up with the Congress within the Uttar Pradesh elections. ‘This won’t assist us’, he had advised his son.

Akhilesh went forward with the tie-up and surprisingly, additionally gave over 100 seats out of the 400-odd within the state to the Congress. The end result was a catastrophe as his father had feared — Congress gained simply seven seats and Samajwadi Party (SP) additionally collapsed, resulting in a historic win for the BJP using on the Narendra Modi wave. “Akhilesh then learnt his lesson that Congress pulls down the SP in Uttar Pradesh and he steered clear of them in 2022, doing much better than 2017,” a prime SP chief advised News18.

Behind Akhilesh’s current irritation with the Congress is that this 2017 lesson the place the SP chief has developed little tolerance for the ‘big brother’ angle of the Congress. Things have come to such a cross that some within the SP usually are not even ruling out the prospect of Akhilesh Yadav selecting to place up candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli in 2024 if Congress doesn’t make up with him.

SP spokesperson IP Singh’s publish on social networking web site X added gas to fireplace. “SP will field its candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli. Congress must contest elections in Kanauj and Azamgarh. Most Welcome. Despite the slogan “I am a daughter, I can fight”, Congress remained ineffective.”

The SP has historically not put up candidates in these bastions of the Congress, serving to it win the seats.

But, in 2019, Rahul Gandhi nonetheless misplaced from Amethi to BJP’s Smriti Irani. Making issues worse for the Congress presently in UP is its state president Ajay Rai who has adopted an aggressive line in opposition to the SP, together with questioning how SP misplaced the Azamgarh Lok Sabha bypoll final yr if it was so robust in UP. Akhilesh retorted that he had an emotional reference to Azamgarh just like the Congress has with Amethi and Rae Bareilly, and they need to be conscious of the identical.

The Congress, nevertheless, has been lower than charitable to the SP within the upcoming Madhya Pradesh elections, sparing not even a single seat for SP and reinforcing that the alliance is just for the Lok Sabha elections and never the state elections. Akhilesh Yadav has stated that Congress ought to have clarified this proper on the onset of the formation of INDIA. An indignant Akhilesh is promising to pay the Congress again in the identical coin in 2024 and that is dangerous information for INDIA.

A BJP sweep in Uttar Pradesh for the third time in 2024 may pave the way in which for the return of Narendra Modi because the prime minister once more and the state with 80 Lok Sabha seats is therefore the important thing for INDIA. But with the BSP already out of the alliance and now SP-Congress relations changing into frosty, it’s the BJP which is laughing its method to the financial institution in UP. BJP-led alliance gained 73 seats out of 80 in UP in 2014 and it’s aiming at breaking that document in 2024 now.