After weeks of negotiations, the Samajwadi Party and Congress have finalised their pre-poll alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Naresh Uttam Patel, the SP state president, announced that the Congress has been offered 17 seats to contest in Uttar Pradesh as part of the agreement.
The seat-sharing formula has been agreed upon by both parties, who are now prepared to jointly challenge the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, according to Patel.
The Congress and SP are both members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), which was established last year to unite the Opposition bloc against the BJP.
Avinash Pande, Congress’ Uttar Pradesh in-charge, also confirmed the pre-poll alliance with the SP during a media briefing. “I am pleased to announce that in Uttar Pradesh, the INC (Indian National Congress) will contest 17 seats, while the remaining 63 seats will be filled by candidates from the INDIA Alliance – comprising the SP and other parties,” he stated.
According to the arrangement, the Congress party will vie for Lok Sabha seats in Raebareli, Amethi, Kanpur, Fatehpur Sikri, Bans Ganv, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Maharajganj, Varanasi, Amroha, Jhansi, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur, Barabanki, and Deoria.
Ever since Congress’ 2.0 boondoggle project, Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, entered Uttar Pradesh, the discussions over the fate of the INDI alliance, which is splintering in different parts of the country, started gaining heat, with political pundits who have closely observed the UP polls declaring that their alliance might help the BJP instead in mobilising its voter base.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had so far not joined the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra and had been skirting questions over whether he would take part in it, apparently contingent upon the negotiations that were taking place in the background between the two parties.
It was reported that SP, as a ‘last bid‘ attempt had offered Congress 17 seats out of the total 80 Lok Sabha seats to be contested in Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress party was reportedly unhappy with the seat allocation and was expecting more seats for the Lok Sabha polls. However, given the lacklustre response to the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, the Congress’ disappointing tally in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, where Rahul Gandhi himself lost the Gandhi pocket borough Amethi, and a confident BJP riding on the public sentiments following the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony all seems to have tempered the grand old party’s expectations and forced them to arrive at a settlement with the SP.
It is worth noting that Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav had faced a humiliating loss the last time they came together to fight the Vidhan Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, which resulted in the emergence of Yogi Adityanath on the national political stage.
Nevertheless, as per opinion polls, the BJP is set to rack up over 70 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh alone, which might ultimately prove to be a pivotal contribution towards staking its claim to power and coming back with an even greater majority as articulated by PM Modi and BJP’s top brass.
