December dinner indicated Congress, BSP won’t partner

The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Indian National Congress, potential allies not so long ago, are now busy trading charges. On Thursday, each accused the other of being the B-team of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The beginning of the rift, if it can be called that – there are many who expect the BSP, Samajwadi Party, and Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance to partner with the Congress after the elections, and Mayawati has asked her supporters to back the Congress in Amethi and Rae Bareli – can be traced back to a dinner in Delhi in December, HT learns.

In December, at least a month before the alliance of the SP, BSP, and RLD was announced, and ahead of the announcement of the results of the assembly elections in five states including Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh, BSP chief Mayawati received a request. Could Congress President Rahul Gandhi and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi meet with her? Mayawati confirmed the meeting within a day, and a dinner date was set. The Gandhis were to meet with Mayawati at her official residence at Gurudwara Rakabganj Road.

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People in the inner circle of the Congress leaders confirmed that there was indeed a dinner meeting but said no one knew what was discussed. They add that Mayawati’s close confidant, BSP leader SC Misra was not present and it was just the “three of them”.

The dinner lasted around 90 minutes and HT learns that Sonia Gandhi asked Mayawati what it would take to bring her to the negotiating table in terms of seat sharing, but that the latter declined to commit to anything. The Gandhis were disappointed, the people added.

While many political alliances are served up over dinner meetings — the famous one in 2008 where Amar Singh brought Mulayam Singh Yadav to the UPA dinner, led to Manmohan Singh government being saved in the nuclear deal trust vote — this one failed to achieve the desired result.

This may have been when the Congress decided that it would be going it alone in Uttar Pradesh; talk started doing the rounds of how the party was on the turnaround track and needed to protect its interests even as it sought alliances; and, eventually, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia were named general secretaries of the party in charge of Uttar Pradesh.

That put paid to talks of a grand national alliance, which first started in March last year, when Mayawati, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and several other regional and national leaders shared the stage with the Janata Dal (S) HD Kumaraswamy and HD Deve Gowda after the Congress decided to forge an alliance with the party after the Karnataka elections to keep the BJP out.

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Now, if the parties are talking, it is largely to level charges at each other.

On Thursday, the Congress’ former legislative party leader Pramod Mathur denied that the party was giving tickets to BSP rebels to spoil the latter’s chances. “Mayawati’s words show her unpredictable temperament. Our leader Sonia Gandhi is very respected and by speaking this way, she is diluting her own status.’’

Mayawati had attacked Congress president Rahul Gandhi by asking why he was hugging the PM. She went on to say that it represented how the Congress was helping BJP by eating into secular votes.

Rahul had, during a Parliament session last year, hugged Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

BSP spokesperson Sudhindra Bhadoria said he wasn’t aware of a dinner meeting but that he found the Congress’ attitude in the kind of tickets it has given, problematic: “In Madhya Pradesh, it has even bought our candidate who was contesting there. We had to scramble to field someone in the polls,’’ he said. For BSP supporter and campaigner Pritesh Rajbhar, this attitude will only help the BJP. “For us, Congress and BJP are now equidistant.”