Samajwadi Party will not form any alliance, Mulayam Singh Yadav says days after meeting Congress strategist Prashant Kishor.


The Samajwadi Party supremo and Congress poll strategist Prashant Kishor held a closed-door meeting with UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav fuelling speculation that a grand alliance could be on the anvil for the 2017 assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

The meeting assumes significance as the 43-year-old chief minister is expected to have a major say in ticket distribution and choice of seats to be contested by his party in case an alliance is cobbled together.

There has been speculation of a 'mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) among erstwhile Janata Parivar parties and the Congress to check the Bharatiya Janata Party. In its tracks Kishor met Akhilesh and was with him for nearly three hours during which they are understood to have discussed threadbare the state's political scenario ahead of the upcoming elections.

However, Akhilesh sounded cautious and not in a hurry when he said factors like who will benefit and who will lose in case of an alliance have to be considered.

"Elections are near, who will be benefited, who will lose (in alliance) is to be taken note of. The decision is to be taken by party's national president," Akhilesh told reporters while refusing to publicly state his stand on the issue.

"I will give my suggestions only at party platform," he said.

When asked specifically about the possibility of the Samajwadi Party joining the hands with the Congress, Akhilesh parried a direct reply, saying "If the SP and the Congress want alliance, will you (media) stop it?"

He did not elaborate on the query made against the backdrop of Kishor's two rounds of meeting with Mulayam on Sunday, triggering speculation of a 'mahagathbandhan' similar to the one in Bihar.

Kishor's back-to-back talks with Mulayam and Akhilesh come close on the heels of top leaders of socialist-leaning parties attending SP's silver jubilee meet -- a move seen as an attempt by Mulayam to forge an alliance for the crucial polls hardly a few months away.