After more than a year of initiating talks over an electoral tieup with the Ajit Singh-led RLD, the Congress on Thursday indicated that a formal announcement could be made by this weekend. The Congress indicated that the RLD, which had
been demanding about 70 seats for the UP Assembly elections, could settle for about 50 constituencies along with the possible induction of Mr Ajit Singh in the Union Cabinet.
The Congress will be holding a couple of meetings in few days to finalise its third list for the next year’s UP elections. The Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh and party’s screening committee in-charge for UP, Mohan Prakash, had met Mr Ajit Singh on Wednesday. It has been learnt that broad agreements between the two parties had been reached during the Wednesday meeting.
The Congress has so far released two lists for the UP elections and has declared candidates for 135 in all so far. The third list is likely by the first week of November.
While the Congress leaders maintained that talks with Mr Ajit Singh on Wednesday were held in “cordial” atmosphere, there still appear to be some irritants as the RLD wants the Congress to withdraw candidates from some seats in the western UP, which had already been announced. Speculation is also doing the rounds that Mr Ajit Singh could get the industries portfolio though his preference had been agriculture.