An hour after Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav questioned the need for the SP-BSP alliance, the Bahujan Samaj Party released a list of seats that the two parties would contest in Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, leaving two seats for the Congress and three for Rashtriya Lok Dal.
As per the list signed by SP president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati, the SP will contest 37 seats while the BSP will field its candidates on 38 seats. The five seats left for other parties by the BSP-SP alliance are Rae Bareli and Amethi for Congress, and Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar and Mathura for the RLD.
On January 12, when the SP and BSP announced their alliance, both Mayawati and Akhilesh had said that they would contest 38 seats each and leave four seats for other parties including two for Congress. But the SP sacrificed one seat from its quota to pacify the RLD.
As per the list, the SP will contest eight Lok Sabha seats in west UP, 16 in east UP, nine in central UP and two each in Terai and Bundelkhand region.
Akhilesh is likely to contest from Kannauj and Mulayam Singh Yadav from Mainpuri.
The SP has been given all the five seats it had won in the 2014 parliamentary elections — Azamgarh, Kannauj, Mainpuri, Budaun and Ferozabad. In the Lok Sabha by-elections, the SP had wrested the prized Gorakhpur and Kairana seats from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Because of its sway in eastern UP, the BSP will contest 17 seats of the region, including Ambedkar Nagar from where Mayawati is expected to contest.
The BSP will contest 11 seats of western UP, eight in central UP and two in Bundelkhand region.
Out of the 16 reserved constituencies, the BSP will contest on 10 seats while the SP will field its candidates from six of these seats.
As per the list, the SP will field its candidates from Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Kheri, Hardoi, Lucknow, Unnao, Faizabad, Barabanki, Bahraich, Gonda, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Ballia, Azamgarh, Chandauli, Varanasi, Robertsganj, Mirzapur, Phulpur, Allahabad, Banda, Jhansi, Kanpur, Etawah, Kannauj, Mainpuri, Kushinagar, Etah, Firozabad, Hathras, Budaun, Kaushambi and Kairana.
The 38 constituencies from where the BSP will field its candidates are Bijnor, Amroha, Aonla, Shahjahanpur, Bhadohi, Sitapur, Misrikh, Mohanlalganj, Pratapgarh, Sultanpur, Akbarpur, Kaiserganj, Fatehpur Sikri, Basti, Domariyaganj, Nagina, Bansgaon, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Salempur, Deoria, Ghosi, Lalganj, Machhalishahr, Jaunpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Ghazipur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Fatehpur, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Dhaurahra, Shravasti, Farrukhabad, Agra, Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Meerut and Saharanpur.