Battle for UP: SP, allies face seat sharing trouble

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Lucknow, Jan 24 (IANS) The Samajwadi Party's alliance seems to be running into rough weather over the issue of seat allotment.

While the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), an ally of the Samajwadi Party (SP) in west Uttar Pradesh, is facing trouble over seat allotment in at least eight Assembly segments, another ally has now queered the pitch for the SP.

A day after SP president Akhilesh Yadav named Rita Singh as the party candidate from the Sandila Assembly constituency in Hardoi for the UP polls, his alliance partner Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) has now announced its own candidate for the same seat.

In a press statement, the SBSP named its UP president 'Sunil Arkvanshi as the Samajwadi Party-SBSP candidate on the Sandila seat in Hardoi for the UP polls'.

Samajwadi Party state spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary said, "I am not aware of the seat declaration by the SBSP or if there is any confusion, we will work it out."

However, SBSP national spokesperson Piyush Mishra said, "There cannot be any confusion. The SP had allotted the Sandila seat to the SBSP. In fact, Akhilesh even did a rally for us in this constituency on November 27."

Akhilesh Yadav, on Saturday, had announced the induction of Rita Singh, the wife of former Samajwadi Party MLA from Sandila, into the party.

Rita Singh, the wife of the late Raja Mahavir Singh who won the Sandila seat on the SP ticket in 2012, is from the famous Bhargava family of Lucknow.

She is the daughter of the late Rani Ramkumar Bhargava, a freedom fighter and Congress leader. Rita Singh's brother Luv Bhargava was earlier the state general secretary of the Samajwadi Party. Luv Bhargava had contested on the Lucknow East seat in the 1993 UP Assembly polls as an SP candidate.

--IANS

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