BJP bites into Congress-SP seat-sharing squabble: ‘This was bound to happen…Keep watching’

BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday characterized the ongoing feud between Congress and Samajwadi Party over seat-sharing arrangement as a predictable outcome of an “opportunistic alliance”.

“This was bound to happen. They are trying to defeat BJP and there is no courtesy for each other among them. Keep watching,” Prasad told ANI.

“In an opportunist alliance, a clash of selfishness was supposed to happen and it happened,” he added.

The war of words between the two key INDIA bloc parties took an ugly turn as Samajwadi Party leader I P Singh called former Congress president Rahul Gandhi a “crazy dimwit” and “childless”. Singh also said the person who could not unite his brother Varun Gandhi is spreading fake love, in an obvious jibe at Congress leader's ‘Mohabbat ki Dukaan’ pitch.

“The seven generations of Congress will never be able to do any harm to the Samajwadi Party,” Singh said, adding that “Rahul Gandhi is anyway childless.”

The tensions came to the fore after the Samajwadi Party cried foul over Congress going solo in the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, claiming that MP Congress state president Kamal Nath and senior party leader Digvijaya Singh had assured of a seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties.

“So far as the forthcoming assembly elections in many states are concerned, the INDIA bloc should have clarified at the outset that there will not be any agreement at the state level. I was under the impression that there would be an agreement at the state level considering our talks with the Madhya Pradesh leaders (Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh) of the Congress,” SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said.

Yadav reiterated that the INDIA alliance should have clarified that there would be no tie-up in the state elections.

Hitting back, UPCC president Ajay Rai said on Friday that Yadav cannot blame the Congress as the SP released its list of candidates before his party and was benefitting the BJP by contesting separately. Rai also reportedly asked if Akhilesh Yadav was so strong, how come they lost the Azamgarh to the BJP. Akhilesh Yadav had won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Azamgarh but the party lost the seat in June 2022 bypolls to the BJP.

Reacting to Rai's remarks, Yadav said, "I want to tell the Congress, don't talk about our party through your 'chirkut' leaders."