Akhilesh’s SP skips Kharge’s lunch for INDIA bloc MPs

The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday skipped the lunch hosted by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge for the INDIA allies protesting in Delhi for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, a day after SP lawmakers formed a separate group during the Opposition’s march from Parliament to Akashvani Bhavan.

According to several lawmakers who attended the lunch at Sagar Ratna restaurant on Janpath in Delhi, many enquired about the SP’s absence.

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav had returned to Lucknow after Delhi Police released him following his detention. This is the second INDIA group event Yadav has missed in recent months; he had not attended the INDIA group meeting on September 29 but sent two party leaders instead.

Speaking to media in Lucknow on Wednesday, Yadav said that “lunch diplomacy” would not remain confined to a single meal.

“In the days ahead, you may also hear of dinner diplomacy and tea diplomacy. We may all be found sitting together eating samosas—that too could become news,” Yadav remarked.

SP’s Udaiveer Singh said Akhilesh Yadav returned on Tuesday night due to commitments related to the Rajya Sabha polls. “We are a regional party, so we have to take care of our commitments in Uttar Pradesh,” he said.

However, some within the party expressed dissatisfaction with how the protests were being planned.

A senior SP MP, speaking on condition of anonymity, attributed the absence primarily to inadequate and delayed communication from the Congress. “The Congress sent only a formal letter to the SP office, and it arrived late. First, if this had been communicated properly, many of our MPs who left last evening would have stayed back. Second, a phone call from Kharge ji or any senior leader to SP’s senior leadership would have coordinated things properly,” the MP said.

“Though this won’t affect our alliance in any way, proper communication could have saved the Congress from this embarrassing situation,” the SP leader added.

The Congress, however, downplayed Yadav’s absence from the lunch.

Congress communication chief Jairam Ramesh said in an X post, “All INDIA janbandhan parties had been invited for today’s lunch. But the decision for the lunch was taken late last night and communicated. It was therefore natural that some parties could not be represented. There is needless comment in some sections of the media on it. INDIA and other Opposition parties are united and stand in solidarity against vote chori, SIR and delimitation.”

Two Congress leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Yadav might be wary of hobnobbing with the Congress ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections, due early next year. “He might be repositioning ahead of the polls,” said a senior Congress leader.

In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly election, the Samajwadi Party did not have an alliance with the Congress.

On Tuesday, for most of the march, the SP sought to maintain its own group rather than mingle with other parties where the Congress played the lead role. When the march halted near Akashvani Bhavan, Yadav quickly formed a separate group near the NITI Aayog building. Later, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra brought Yadav into the main group.

Yadav’s support to the Opposition is also crucial to prevent the passage of proposed delimitation-related amendments to the Constitution, a key target of the BJP. The ruling dispensation has not yet prorogued the monsoon session of Parliament, keeping alive its chances to reintroduce the delimitation bill.