Offering 11 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh to the Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP) president and former U.P. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Saturday said that their “alliance” is off to a good start in the State.
The Congress was quick to endorse the positive development but insisted that the seat-sharing had not reached its conclusions yet and asserted that senior leader Ashok Gehlot will soon meet Mr. Yadav.
Both the Congress and the SP are members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). The development came amid strong indications that Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar is likely to leave the Opposition bloc and rejoin the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
“Our cordial alliance with the Congress is off to a good start with 11 strong seats. This trend will move forward with the winning equation. ‘INDIA’ team and ‘PDA’ (Picchda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) strategy will change history,” Mr. Yadav said in a post on X.
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“We [SP] have offered 11 seats to them [the Congress], so that there is a respectable mutual coordination among us, and we can defeat the BJP,” chief spokesperson of the SP Rajendra Chaudhary added.
“We have given 11 seats to the Congress [in U.P.] and seven seats to the Rashtriya Lok Dal [RLD]. This comes to 18 seats. The SP will contest 62 seats in the Lok Sabha election,” Mr. Chaudhary added.
At a press conference in Delhi, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh responded to Mr. Yadav’s tweet and said talks are still going on.
“Talks are going on in a very positive and good environment, and soon a strong result will come. Ashok Gehlot ji will meet Akhilesh Yadav ji very soon,” Mr. Ramesh said, adding, “We will inform you once a formula is finalised.”
U.P. Congress president Ajay Rai, who is said to be demanding close to 20 seats, said that the final decision on seat-sharing will be taken by the party high command.
In the current Lok Sabha, the SP, that had fought in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2019, has three MPs while BSP has 10 MPs. Sonia Gandhi, who represents the Rae Bareli seat, is the lone Congress MP from the State.
On January 19, the SP and RLD had announced their alliance for the Lok Sabha election, with SP leaving seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh for the RLD.
