The Hand and the Elephant are striking up a new friendship in UP. Thanks to Madhusudan Mistry, who revved up the efforts to revive Congress in the state after the party’s responsibility in the state was taken over from Digvijay Singh. Mistry has had several rounds on decisive meetings with the BSP supremo. And both the BSP and the Congress have come to an ethical agreement of sorts about a coalition of before the elections. Only after that did Mayawati’s meeting with Ahmad Patel and Sonia Gandhi take place. The Congress has made it clear to the BSP supremo in a way that if such a coalition between the Congress and the BSP does take place, there will be no token coalition from the Congress and that the party will play a big role in the coalition. For instance, out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP, it is being said that the BSP will contest in 45 seats and the Congress in 35. This seat suggestion has come from the Congress. So it is likely that after some minor changes here and there (50-30, for instance), a formal agreement may be reached upon by the two parties. And if that really does happen, it will be danger sign for the SP and the BJP because in Madhusudan Mistry’s recent survey, the Congress’ state is pretty fragile in UP. If the Congress decides to go all out on its own in the elections, it will be able to muster only four to six seats of the present 22 seats in the state. It is worth mentioning here that Mistry had given the report of the survey to Rahul Gandhi only one-and-a-half months ago.