The standoff between Congress and Samajwadi Party, both partners of the INDIA bloc, over sharing of seats for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, finally ended on Wednesday when both the parties came together and announced a tie-up for the parliamentary polls, with the state’s main opposition party leaving 17 out of the 80 seats for the grand old party.
The remaining 63 seats will be contested by SP but on all the seats, both the parties would work to ensure the victory of all the candidates of alliance.
The Congress gave one Lok Sabha seat, Khajuraho, to the Samajwadi Party in Madhya Pradesh. The SP candidate will contest the election on the election symbol of the Congress.
The announcement was made at a joint press conference addressed by SP state chief Naresh Uttam Patel, SP national general secretary Rajendra Chaudhary, Congress state president Ajay Rai and AICC in-charge for UP Avinash Pandey here on Wednesday.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday confirmed his party’s alliance with the INDIA bloc for the upcoming general elections in Uttar Pradesh.
He said there were 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 is well if the end is well).
With the finalisation of the SP-Congress alliance, Uttar Pradesh is all set to witness a triangular contest. While Bharatiya Janata Party would go with its partners under National Democratic Alliance, Bahujan Samaj Party has announced to go it alone.
The seats to be contested by the Congress are- Rae Bareli, Amethi, Kanpur, Fatehpur Sikri, Baansgaon, Saharanpur, Pryagraj, Maharajganj, Varanasi, Amroha, Jhansi, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur, Barabanki and Deoria.
Sources said that the seat-sharing talks had almost reached a dead end on Tuesday with both parties adamant on their stands, especially on some seats on which both wanted to contest. The talks also broke down as Akhilesh Yadav had set conditions for joining Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Amethi or Rae Bareli.
Intervention by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, however, sealed the deal between the two parties. Sources said that Priyanka contacted senior party leaders over telephone on Tuesday night and directed them to withdraw their claims on additional seats and make a compromise on seats offered by the SP.
On her intervention, SP exchanged at least three seats demanded by Congress but refused to increase the total number of seats from 17.
Finally on Wednesday, Congress general secretary Avinash Pandey, along with SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary and UPCC chief Ajay Rai called a joint press conference to announce the SP-Congress alliance in UP and MP.
The talks moved forward after the Congress gave up THE demand for the Moradabad seat and instead asked for Sitapur, Shravasti, and Varanasi Lok Sabha seats where the SP had already announced its candidate.
Varanasi is the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The SP would withdraw its candidate from Varanasi, where it had announced its candidate.
The alliance has come as a relief for the fledgling INDIA bloc. The bloc has already faced setbacks, with Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party declaring that they would fight the Lok Sabha polls in Bengal and Punjab respectively.
