After days of deliberations, the Samajwadi Party and Congress on Wednesday announced to unitedly contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls under the banner of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc in Uttar Pradesh. This is the first such deal announced by the opposition alliance for any state in the run-up to the general elections.
As part of the agreement, Congress will contest 17 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, which sends the maximum number of lawmakers from any state to the Lower House of Parliament.
Uttar Pradesh SP President Naresh Uttam Patel and UP Congress Chief Ajay Rai addressed a joint press conference to announce the deal. Congress Uttar Pradesh in-charge Avinash Pande, who was also present there, said that other I.N.D.I.A. bloc parties including the SP will field candidates on the remaining 63 seats.
“I am delighted to tell you that it has been decided that in Uttar Pradesh the INC will contest 17 seats and the remaining 63 seats will have candidates of INDIA Alliance – from SP and other parties,” Pande said.
Congress will field its candidates in Rai Bareily, Amethi, Kanpur Nagar, Fatehpur Sikri, Bansgaon, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Maharajganj, Varanasi, Amroha, Jhanshi, Bulandshahar, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur, Barabanki and Deoria.
Rai Bareli and Amethi used to be Congress strongholds for decades. However, the party lost the Amethi seat to the BJP in the 2019 elections and Sonia Gandhi, who represented Rai Bareli four times in Lok Sabha, will not be seeking re-election from the constituency after she was elected to Rajya Sabha recently.
In Varanasi, the Congress candidate is likely to face Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who registered two landslide victories from the seat in two back-to-back elections.
The UP Congress chief said the INDIA alliance will register victory in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and will defeat NDA. “Our (Congress-Samajwadi Party) strategy is to stand firmly with each other. Samajwadi Party will contest elections on 63 seats while Congress will contest on 17 seats in Uttar Pradesh,” he added.
Besides Uttar Pradesh, Naresh Uttam Patel said the Samajwadi Party will contest one seat, Khajuraho, in Madhya Pradesh and support Congress on the rest.
Earlier today, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav confirmed his party’s alliance with the INDIA bloc. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said that there are no issues with the alliance.
“We will partner with Congress, there are no issues in the alliance,” Yadav told reporters, adding, “Ant bhala toh sab bhala” (All’s well if the end’s well).
Exuding confidence, the SP chief said that the Bharatiya Janata Party “will be defeated”. He added that his party will contest maximum seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
CANDIDATES LIST OF SP-CONGRESS ALLIANCE
Meanwhile, sources in the Congress have said that the final list of candidates of the SP-Congress alliance might be released today.
Samajwadi Party is likely to take back its candidate for the Varanasi seat and will give the seat to Congress. Earlier SP had announced its candidate for the seat even though UP Congress President Ajay Rai used to contest from there.
Hathras, on the other hand, will be given to the Akhilesh Yadav-led party in exchange for Sitapur. Additionally, SP might get one seat from Bulandshahr or Mathura and Congress might get the Shravasti seat.
The grand old party has said that SP should consider the seat-sharing proposal on the basis of caste equation on ground and the previous vote shares of both the parties.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Akhilesh Yadav’s confirmation comes a day after his party released its third list of five candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. The party fielded senior leader Shivpal Yadav from Budaun parliamentary constituency.
Party president Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle, Shivpal Yadav, is an MLA from the Jaswantnagar assembly constituency in Etawah district.
On the same day, former national general secretary of the party Swami Prasad Maurya quit the party and resigned from the post of MLC.
“I got an opportunity to work with you. But after our talks on February 12 and my resignation (as national general secretary) on February 13, no initiative of any talks with me was taken due to which I am resigning from the primary membership of the party,” Maurya said in his resignation letter to party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Meanwhile, during seat sharing talks with the Congress, SP offered 17 Lok Sabha seats in UP to the grand-old party. ““We have given a final offer of 17 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress. Akhilesh Yadav’s participation in the Nyay Yatra in Raebareli on Tuesday will depend on their acceptance,” Rajendra Chaudhary, the Samajwadi Party’s chief spokesperson said.
Earlier on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav had said that his party will not join Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in the state unless seat-sharing between the two parties is finalised.
“Right now talks are going on, lists have come from them, we have also given them the list. The moment, seat distribution is done, Samajwadi Party will join their Nyaya Yatra,” party’s chief spokesperson said.
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