Samajwadi Party leaders seek bigger pie in seat-sharing for Maharashtra polls

Mumbai: Upbeat after the Lok Sabha performance in Uttar Pradesh, leaders of the Samajwadi Party (SP) have said they expect that the I.N.D.I.A. bloc allies will give them the respect they deserve in the seat-sharing for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections.

In an event organised on Friday to felicitate the newly-elected SP MPs, the Maharashtra unit of the party sounded the bugle for the assembly elections, due in October.

The Samajwadi Party's Bhiwandi East MLA Rais Shaikh accused the BJP, Shiv Sena (without specifying the faction) and Congress-NCP of doing injustice to his party's workers.

The constituents of the Opposition's MVA alliance in Maharashtra, including the Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP) and Congress, are also part of the larger, national-level INDIA grouping.

"We are becoming partners now. Today, the foundation of the INDIA alliance rests on the Samajwadi Party. If (party chief) Akhilesh Yadav ji says something, no INDIA leader can refuse. We will get the seats we deserve. We want the respect we deserve," Shaikh said.

Seat-sharing talks have started, he added.

"We are just two MLAs (himself and Abu Azmi), but we can outmatch 100 MLAs...Our 10 MLAs will overwhelm 288 (the strength of the Maharashtra assembly)," he said.

While the SP, part of the INDIA grouping, did not contest any Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra, it won 37 seats in Uttar Pradesh, delivering a blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In Maharashtra it has only two MLAs, both from the Muslim community.

Awadhesh Prasad, SP MP from Faizabad, said the party's "Pichhada, Dalit, Alpsankhyank (PDA)' social engineering formula should be implemented across the country.

"No government can be formed here without the support of the SP," Prasad said.

SP MLA Abu Azmi, who represents the Mankhurd-Shivajinagar assembly constituency in Mumbai, said the party's morale was very high in Maharashtra post the Lok Sabha polls.

North Indians should not be challenged or else they will give a befitting reply, Azmi said.

"I don't want to sour my mouth by taking his name. How many shops and vehicles were vandalised by him?....Make me the home minister once, I will handle them in such a way that they will never forget," he said.

While Azmi did not name anybody, the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had launched a campaign against the north Indians in 2008, which turned violent.

Earlier in the day, the SP MPs visited the famous Siddhivinayak temple and Mani Bhavan Gandhi Museum here. They also visited Chaityabhoomi in Dadar, the place where Dr B R Ambedkar was cremated.