Thirty-Six years after Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kanshi Ram brought their then fledgling outfits -- SP and BSP -- together to tame the saffron surge in the wake of Ram Temple movement, the present chiefs of the two parties -- Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati -- are all set to do an encore. On Saturday, the two would address their maiden joint press conference at a five-star hotel in Lucknow, where they are most likely to announce their alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.The venue of the press conference is the same where Akhilesh and Congress president Rahul Gandhi had held a joint presser exactly two years ago to announce their coming together for 2017 UP elections with a slogan "UP Ko Yeh Saath Pasand Hai". But, this time Congress seems to be formally out of what would have been a grand alliance. Akhilesh and Mayawati, however, may offer cameo roles to RLD chief Ajit Singh and Nishad Party.Besides, as announced earlier, the alliance would not field its candidates in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the constituencies of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. As per the highly placed sources privy to the parleys between the two sides, BSP is likely to get one seat more to contest than the SP, leaving three-four seats to RLD and other smaller outfits like Nishad Party. SP had fielded Nishad Party chief's son Praveen Nishad as its own candidate in Gorakhpur bypoll in which he emerged victorious.With their combined vote bank of Yadavs, Muslims and Dalits, SP and BSP are looking to neutralise the reverses they had to suffer in 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 Assembly elections. In 2014, SP was reduced to five seats and BSP failed to open its account. However, if one goes by votes polled by the two, they would have cut BJP's tally of 71 seats by half despite a Modi wave, had they contested together in 2014.Although a formal announcement about the alliance was expected on January 15, birthday of Mayawati and Akhilesh's wife Dimple Yadav, media persons in Lucknow woke up to a surprise on Friday when a joint invite signed by SP national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary and BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra landed in their inbox. This was a formal burial of 34-year-old animosity the two parties were holding ever since SP workers allegedly held Mayawati hostage at a guest house in Lucknow in June 1995 after BSP pulled out of Mulayam-led government.In 1993 state elections, held just after demolition of Babri Masjid, SP and BSP contested together and won 109 and 69 respectively. Although BJP was the single-largest party with 177 seats, SP-BSP formed the government with support from other parties.Congress, on the other hand, has gone into an overdrive, preparing for the life without grand alliance. Its spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told mediaeprsons in Delhi that ignoring the grand old party would be a "dangerous mistake". "Nobody should underestimate the Congress with its reach, presence and support base in UP. Congress is an established party in the state... We may have fallen in difficult times but ignoring us will be a dangerous mistake," Singhvi said, reacting to the snub the party received from SP and BSP. He, however, quickly added: "We are hopeful of a happy and harmonious relation with them (SP, BSP) in the coming days."On the other hand, amid reports that Congress was gearing up to contest 40 seats on its own, including 22 it had won in 2009, senior party leader PL Punia told a news agency that party chief Rahul Gandhi would address 10 rallies in UP in February. " He would be in the state every third day," Punia said.Although Akhilesh and Mayawati have been talking about an anti-BJP alliance since the decimation of their parties in 2017 UP elections and they experimented it successfully in subsequent bypolls, there has been a sudden momentum in this direction after the SP chief drove down to BSP boss's house in Delhi with his 'happy new year' message 10 days ago. After that, the two have been issuing press statements backing each other on different issues.It was Mayawati first who advised Akhilesh 'not to get shaken' after reports that CBI might question him in course of its investigation into the mining scam in UP that allegedly took place when he was the chief minister. A few days later, Akhilesh issued a press release condemningsaying that "PM was scared of the alliance" after Modi remarked at a rally in Agra that Mayawati was “forgetting” an attack on her by SP workers in 1995 for “political gains”.

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