From the Urdu Press: ‘Cong, SP, AAP tie-ups signal all is not lost in INDIA camp’, ‘In Ajit Pawar’s Muslim outreach, a message to BJP’

Lurching from crisis to crisis, the Opposition INDIA alliance seemed to have finally got a breather over the week as some of its key partners, including the Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), sealed their seat-sharing deals for the Lok Sabha polls in several states after weeks of tense negotiations and hard bargaining. The alliance has yet to get their act together in crucial states like West Bengal and Maharashtra though, where its constituents continue to be on a collision course. All these happenings made it to the front pages of the Urdu dailies as they step up their coverage of the grand electoral battle round the corner.

ROZNAMA RASHTRIYA SAHARA

Referring to the seat-sharing breakthroughs made by the INDIA parties, the multi-edition Roznama Rashtriya Sahara, in its February 25 editorial, says that until recently it seemed that the alliance had unravelled. “But now, following the seat-sharing agreement reached between the SP and Congress, the AAP and Congress have also hammered out a deal,” it writes.

Under the SP-Congress pact, the SP has left 17 seats out of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 for the Congress, including key constituencies like Amethi, Raebareli and Varanasi, and would contest from the remaining 63 seats. “The SP’s decision not to part with Farrukhabad, Salman Khurshid’s home turf, may upset the Congress leader, even as the Congress has allotted Khajuraho to the former, deciding to fight from the remaining 28 seats in Madhya Pradesh.”

The Congress and the AAP have stitched up their alliance for the Union Territories of Delhi and Chandigarh, and the states of Haryana, Gujarat and Goa, the editorial notes, adding: “Late Ahmed Patel’s daughter Mumtaz Patel has expressed her disappointment over the