New Delhi, Aug. 23: The co-ordination panel of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress is in place, so the next step now is to thrash out the all-important seat-sharing arrangement in Uttar Pradesh.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is set to meet the Samajwadi Party’s Amar Singh to discuss seat-sharing for the general elections.

The Congress will need to do some hard bargaining if it wants to contest a respectable number of seats.

Sources said that while the Congress is keen on at least 30 seats, Amar might laugh that off. The Samajwadis are willing to spare only 15 seats, they added.

The Congress will be looking at seats in western Uttar Pradesh like Ghaziabad and Farokhabad and in the Jat belt to increase its chances of making a comeback. At present, the Congress has only nine seats in the state while the Samajwadis have 39.

Third front

Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu, who has been working towards forming a third front, met Uttar Pradesh chief minister and BSP president Mayavati over dinner tonight at her residence.

One of the issues that came up at the meeting was creating more space for the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Ajit Singh in the alliance. Singh has been sulking since Mayavati announced that her party would contest all 80 seats in the state.

The RLD, which has three MPs in the Lok Sabha, had expected quite a few seats in Uttar Pradesh in return for opposing the UPA during the trust vote.

Mayavati, who expects to be the front’s candidate for Prime Minister, did not come out to see off Naidu at the end of the dinner meeting. The talks will continue.

Naidu also met CPM general secretary Prakash Karat to discuss the structure of the alliance. “We are looking at a United Front-Left Front or National Front-Left Front kind of an arrangement where LF will remain LF. We will finalise things by the end of the month,” CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said.