LS polls: SP, Cong announce tie-up in UP, MP; Cong gets 17 seats in UP

LUCKNOW: INDIA bloc partners SP and Congress on Wednesday announced a tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with the UP's main opposition party leaving 17 out of the 80 seats in the state for the ally.

In Madhya Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party will contest on a single seat, Khajuraho, and support the Congress in the remaining constituencies in the state. Among the 17 seats on which the Congress will contest in UP included Raebareli and Amethi, once considered pocket boroughs of the party, and Varanasi which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency.

The seat-sharing announcement was made at a joint press conference here by SP state chief Naresh Uttam Patel, SP national general secretary Rajendra Chaudhary, Congress state president Ajay Rai and AICC in-charge of UP Avinash Pande.

Pande said the Congress will contest on 17 seats, while on the rest 63 seats in the state, the SP and other alliance partners will contest.

SP state chief Patel said party president Akhilesh Yadav will decide candidates for the 63 parliamentary seats in UP.

Apart from Raebareli, Amethi and Varanasi, the other seats on which the Congress will be contesting included Kanpur City, Fatehpur Sekri, Basgaon, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Maharajganj, Amroha, Jhansi, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur, Barabanki and Deoria, Patel said.

Sonia Gandhi is presently MP of Raebareli while Rahul Gandhi lost his Amethi seat to BJP leader Smriti Irani in 2019 polls.

The SP will contest on Khajuraho seat in Madhya Pradesh, which has 29 Lok Sabha seats, and support the Congress on the rest of the seats, Patel said.

He said senior leaders of both the parties will chalk out future programmes of the alliance.

Asked when Akhilesh Yadav will join Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Patel said, "I hope he might join the yatra on February 24 or 25 as per his convenience." Yadav had recently said that he would join the Nyay Yatra after the seat-sharing is finalised.

Congress leader Pande said party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra played a very important role in finalising this alliance.

Expressing his gratitude to Priyanka Gandhi for her efforts, Pande said she is trying to bring all the opposition parties together to defeat the BJP in UP.

In response to a question on the list of Congress candidates, Pande said that the party leadership will release it soon after discussion.

On party's candidates for Raebareli and Amethi seats, Pande said, "No decision has been taken in this regard yet," he said, adding these two seats are very close to the Gandhi family.

When asked whether there is still any problem on Shravasti and Kheri seats, Pande said, "There is no problem on any seat. Every seat has been finalised. In our next meetings, if something comes, the media will be informed." On being asked whether his party will give seats to smaller parties like that of Chandrashekhar Azad, SP state chief Patel said the party national president will take a decision in this regard.

In 2019 parliamentary polls, the SP had an alliance with the BSP and won five seats, while the latter bagged 10 seats. The Congress had won only the Raebareli seat.

During recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, talks between the SP and Congress on seat sharing failed and both the parties contested separately. UP Congress leaders had said then that the INDIA bloc had been formed for Lok Sabha polls.

Following the announcement on seat-sharing, SP chief Yadav said the 'PDA' will defeat the BJP-led NDA in the upcoming polls. In a post on X, Yadav said, "Congratulations to all and best wishes for a harmonious alliance." PDA is acronym coined by Yadav for backwards, dalits and minorities.

"To save the Constitution of Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar; to implement Lohia ji's principle of 'sankhyaupatik hissedari" (share proportional to numbers); to bring equality by activating socialist values; to ensure the rights of 90 per cent PDAs and for the progress of the country… let's unite," Yadav wrote in a post in Hindi.

Yadav hashtagged the posts "#PDA_haraega_NDA" (or "PDA will defeat NDA") and "#assi_harao_BJP_hatao" (defeat on 80, remove BJP).