The Samajwadi Party has conceded two seats to Congress in the Uttar Pradesh assembly bypolls.

The party has given Khair assembly seat in Aligarh and the Ghaziabad Sadar seat which was won by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2022 assembly polls, to the grand old party.

However, Congress leaders in the state were not content with the two seats against the five demanded by them. 

Polling for the assembly seats going to bypolls is scheduled to be held on November 13.

Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said its INDIA bloc ally Congress had agreed to contest two of the 10 seats where bypolls were due in Uttar Pradesh, giving the rest to the principal opposition party.

However, UP Congress chief Ajay Rai said “we are not aware of this and as of now, we stand by our demand of five seats”.

“Our agreement is final with the Congress. Of the 10 seats, the Congress will contest two, Khair (Aligarh) and Ghaziabad, while the SP will contest the remaining eight seats,” Chaudhary said.

The SP has already declared its candidates for seven assembly seats, including Meerapur from where it has fielded Sumbhul Rana. Now, only the candidate from the Kundarki seat is left to be announced by the SP.

Bypolls will be held in nine assembly constituencies – Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur Nagar), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj) and Kundarki (Moradabad).

Earlier, the Samajwadi Party was not too keen to accommodate Congress as the ally did not offer any seat to its INDIA bloc ally in the Haryana assembly elections. Sources said the talks between Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi during the swearing-in ceremony of Omar Abdullah in Srinagar broke the ice and thereafter the Samajwadi Party decided to offer two seats to Congress.

On October 9, Samajwadi Party announced the candidates for six constituencies for the bypolls. They include Tej Pratap from the Karhal seat, Naseem Solanki, wife of former MLA Irfan Solanki, from the Sisamau assembly seat, Ajit Prasad from Milkipur, Mustafa Siddiqui from Phulpur, Shobhawati Verma from Katehari and Dr Jyoti Bind from Majhawan.

On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party is yet to announce its candidates for eight seats while the Rashtriya Lok Dal is to field its candidate for a lone seat.  The Bahujan Samaj Party has decided to contest nine seats. It is yet to announce its candidates.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the Election Commission of India issued notification for the by-elections for the nine assembly seats in the state. The bypolls for Milkipur seat in Ayodhya will be held later as a petition is pending over the seat in the high court.

Except for Sisamau seat, all other eight by-elections will be held as the members representing them have been elected to the Lok Sabha.  The nomination process has started and the last date for the nominations is October 25. Scrutiny of the nominations will be done on October 28 and the last date for withdrawal of the nominations is October 30. Polling will be held on November 13.

However, the BJP and National Democratic Alliance ally RLD, have appealed to the Election Commission to defer the November 13 polls and extend it to November 20 in view of the Kartik Purnima festival on November 15.

A BJP delegation led by party state general secretary Govind Narain Shukla met the state's additional chief electoral officer on Thursday and handed him a letter of their demands.

“… the voting percentage in the byelections may be low due to Kartik Purnima. Therefore, it would be appropriate to fix the date of the byelections as November 20 instead of November 13,” it said.