Left out of UP alliance, Congress gives up plan to include BSP in MP cabinet

File photo of BSP supremo Mayawati | Nand Kumar | PTI

Congress is upset at being ignored for opposition alliance and Mayawati’s continued attack on the party, says no cabinet berth ‘as of now’.

New Delhi: Upset at being left out of the Bahujan Samaj Party’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress has “for now” abandoned the idea of handing a ministerial berth to the BSP in Madhya Pradesh.

Close aides of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath told ThePrint that there was no plan “as of now” to induct any BSP MLA in the government. The BSP has two seats in the 230-member state assembly.

Nath had expanded his council of ministers in December by inducting 28 MLAs, including two women legislators and an Independent. The party, however, appears to not have shut the door on the BSP.

“There is scope to extend the cabinet further but there is no time-frame for it,” a senior Congress functionary said.

The Congress leadership in Delhi was earlier keen to entertain the BSP’s demand for a ministerial berth to one of its two MLAs but now a section of the party wants the Congress to concentrate on the four Independent MLAs, who are all party rebels.

Neither the Congress nor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a simple majority of 116 in the 230-member Vidhan Sabha. While the Congress is the single largest party with 114 MLAs, the BJP has 109 MLAs.

The Congress has the support of two BSP MLAs, the lone SP MLA and the four Independents, taking its tally to 121.

BSP seeks berth but UP developments create a rift

A day before the crucial floor test in Madhya Pradesh on 8 January, the BSP had reiterated its demands for a cabinet berth.

Before the test, BSP MLAs Sanjeev Singh Kushwaha and Rama Bai met Chief Minister Nath at his residence, following which Rama Bai told reporters, “We were told by behenji (Mayawati) to skip Congress MLAs meet but to attend the banquet. I demanded a cabinet post for Sanjeev Singh Kushwaha and a state minister post for myself. I was given an assurance that they will take care of it.”

The senior Congress leader, however, said that the BSP did not make the demand when offering support. “They have demanded it now but no demand was made when they offered support.”

The grand old party is upset with Mayawati for keeping it out of the alliance in UP for the Lok Sabha elections. The SP and the BSP have decided to contest 38 seats each in UP, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha.

The two parties left the Congress out, though they declared that they wouldn’t field any candidate from Amethi or Rae Bareli, the Lok Sabha constituencies of Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother, Sonia Gandhi.

What has further upset the Congress is Mayawati’s continuous attack on the party, equating it with the BJP and comparing the alleged scam in Rafale jet fighter deal with the Bofors scandal that had erupted during Rajiv Gandhi’s prime ministership in the late 1980s.