A day after the declaration of assembly poll results in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday gave a jolt to Congress and announced its candidates for six out of the ten Uttar Pradesh assembly seats where by-elections are due later this year.
The SP is part of the opposition INDIA alliance, which includes the Congress. Despite this, SP's announcement comes amid Congress's demand for five seats in the upcoming bypolls. Congress had not shared any seats with the SP in the Haryana assembly elections, leading to growing friction between the two parties.
According to the list released by the SP, Tej Pratap Yadav has been fielded from Karhal, while Naseem Solanki, the wife of jailed SP leader Irfan Solanki, has been given a ticket from Sisamau in Kanpur. The Karhal seat was vacated by Akhilesh Yadav after he won Lok Sabha election from Kannauj.
Other candidates include Mustafa Siddiqui from Phulpur (Prayagraj), Ajit Prasad from Milkipur (Ayodhya), Shobhawati Verma from Katehari, and Jyoti Bind from Majhwan.
Shobhawati Verma is the wife of SP MP Lalji Verma who was SP MLA from Katehri, while Ajit Prasad is the son of Faizabad (Ayodhya) MP Awadhesh Prasad. Jyoti Bind is the daughter of SP leader Ramesh Bind, who lost the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Mirzapur.
The ten assembly seats up for by-elections include Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur City), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj), and Kundarki (Moradabad). Five of these seats were won by SP and other five by BJP and its allies.
Nine of these seats fell vacant after their MLAs were elected as MPs in the recent Lok Sabha elections, while the Sisamau seat is vacant due to the disqualification of Irfan Solanki after his conviction in a criminal case.
Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai stated that the party had submitted a proposal to its leadership to contest five of the bypoll-bound seats: Majhwan, Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Khair, and Meerapur.
These seats had been won by the BJP in the 2022 assembly elections.Responding to the SP's announcement, Congress has yet to release its final stance on the seat-sharing arrangement. Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said that seat-sharing negotiations would ultimately be decided by SP national president Akhilesh Yadav.
The SP's move has sparked reactions, particularly from the BJP, which linked the decision to the recently concluded Haryana polls.
Transport Minister in UP Government Dayashankar Singh said Haryana results have reduced Congress as non-existent political entity in UP
BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi remarked that the SP's decision to announce candidates for seats, which Congress also claimed, reflects the Haryana election results, stating that the SP is "telling Congress its place." Tripathi claimed that the Haryana results, where the BJP secured a third consecutive victory by winning 48 out of 90 seats, have boosted the morale of the BJP, and the party is confident of winning all the by-election seats in Uttar Pradesh.
As the BJP takes confidence from its Haryana victory, the by-elections in Uttar Pradesh are being viewed as a critical litmus test for the opposition INDIA alliance and its cohesion ahead of the 2024 general elections
