MP elections: Congress-SP fissure widens over Budhni fiasco?

Bhopal, Oct 9: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has brutally snubbed the Congress in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh and refused to make an alliance, blaming the local leadership. On Monday, October 8, another major party from the Hindi belt - the Samajwadi Party (SP) - also increased the Grand Old Party's (GOP) worries by inviting candidates who did not get Congress's tickets to contest the election to his own party.

A fissure in the Congress-SP relationship seemed to have widened after the latter's candidate from Budhni constituency, Arjun Arya, defected to the Congress on Monday saying it was necessary to strengthen the hands of the GOP to end the regime of Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The SP wanted to field Arya against CM Chouhan who himself represents Budhni in the state Assembly.

On Saturday, October 6, the SP independently announced a list of six candidates, giving enough indication of a probable go-alone stance if things did not go well about the alliance.

Former MP Congress chief to join SP?

Meanwhile, a News18 report cited other sources to claim that senior Congress leader Arun Yadav was planning to the SP following his unceremonious ouster as the chief of the MP state Congress earlier this year.

The SP chief and former UP chief minister was not happy with things and said in Khajuraho that the Congress had irked the BSP in a similar way. He said if the Congress is responsible behind Arya's returning his party's ticket, he would welcome all those people who want to contest on the SP's ticket.

The SP president also said that whenever the Congress has found itself on a weak turf, the SP has stood by it. He put the ball in the Congress's court when asked about the failure of the idea of grand alliance to come through in the central Indian state.

MP will go to polls on November 28.