Samajwadi Party, Congress seal poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh

At a joint press conference here, leaders the two parties said SP will contest 298 of the 403 seats and Congress the remaining 105. “SP and Congress have forged an alliance and will contest UP Assembly polls together,” SP state president Naresh Uttam told the hurriedly convened media briefing. UP PCC chief Raj Babbar hoped the SP-Congress alliance will reap a bumper electoral harvest in the state and fulfil aspirations of all sections of the society. 

He said a Common Minimum Programme will be drafted within a week. Talks between top Congress and SP leaders had been going on for the last several days for but an announcement got delayed as the two parties refused to scale down their demand for the number of seats each would contest. Sources said the alliance materialised after Congress President Sonia Gandhi intervened. They said top leaders of both the parties finalised the seat sharing arrangement around wee hours on Sunday. 

Prospects of forming of an alliance between Samajwadi Party and Congress for the Uttar Pradesh polls had run into rough weather, with both parties hardening their stance over the number of seats. At one stage senior SP leader Naresh Agarwal had said the possibility of an alliance was ‘almost over’ and blamed the ‘stubborn’ attitude of Congress for the deadlock.