Congress Mayawati ‘outreach’ sparks speculation in UP; Akhilesh Yadav asks SP cadre to be ‘poll ready’ for all 403 seats

LUCKNOW: The visit of two Dalit functionaries of Cong to the Lucknow residence of Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has roiled the political waters in Uttar Pradesh where assembly elections are to be held early in 2027. That the meeting could not take place because Mayawati was ‘preoccupied’ was another matter.

To say the least, the failed Mayawati outreach has put the Congress in an awkward spot amid 2027 UP alliance chatter, say political analysts.

The Cong and its leadership have formally distanced themselves from the development claiming that the two Dalit functionaries – Barabanki MP Tanuj Punia and SC department national chairman Rajendra Pal Gautam - were not authorised by the party to visit the BSP supremo.

AICC in-charge for UP, Avinash Pande confirmed that the party had sought an explanation from the functionaries involved. “The party has taken note of the matter and notices have been issued to ascertain why the visit took place,” he said.

The explanation has failed to silence talks that the move was a deliberate attempt by the Cong to reach out to the BSP supremo to achieve a bargaining position in its alliance with the SP for the 2027 polls.

A day after the ‘failed’ outreach, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, while presiding over a meeting, talked about how the party has ensured that cadre were ‘poll ready’ on all 403 assembly seats in UP. “This has been done because we have always maintained that winning a seat is more important than the number of seats that SP shares with its alliance partner,” Akhilesh said chairing a meeting at SP headquarters in Lucknow.

SP chief’s statement was seen in unison with a somewhat similar communique that recently travelled down the line: UPCC party’s in-charge for UP, Avinash Pande, reportedly asked the six party secretaries in the state to prepare two lists of candidates for the UP polls. One list was for probable candidates for all 403 Assembly seats, while the second one was for 100 to 120 odd seats that the party was likely to seek as its share in an alliance-type setting.

What has fuelled talks of Cong exploring its options for the assembly polls in UP is the manner in which the grand old party recently parted ways with its long-standing ally and INDIA bloc constituent - the DMK - to side with the ruling coalition led by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay of the TVK.

Not only this, in the West Bengal elections, the INDIA bloc parties — the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Cong — opted to contest separately.

Interestingly the Cong leaders reached out to Mayawati a day after Akhilesh, at an event organised by a Hindi Daily, asserted that the INDIA bloc alliance was very much in place for the 2027 polls. He went on to add that winnability would be the only factor to decide the seat-sharing formula with the alliance partner.

With SP having contested the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in alliance with Cong, the two parties were seen as natural alliance partners for the 2027 assembly elections as well.