After days of hectic consultations INDIA alliance partners Samajwadi Party and Congress have finally announced a tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with 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 , 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 in Lucknow by SP state chief Naresh Uttam Patel, SP national general secretary Rajendra Chaudhary, Congress state president Ajay Rai and All India Congress Committee in-charge of UP Avinash Pande.
Congress Uttar Pradesh in-charge Avinash Pande said , “I am delighted to tell you that it has been decided that in Uttar Pradesh the INC will contest on 17 seats and the remaining 63 seats will have candidates of INDIA Alliance – from SP and other parties.”
SP state president Patel said, “The Congress will contest on 17 seats in UP and on the rest of the 63 seats, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav will decide candidates.”
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.
Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav quoted by ANI said , ” From the starting itself Samajwadi Party wanted the alliance, there was a little bit of delay because BJP is in front of us. I want to congratulate Samajwadi Party and Congress as the alliance has reached its destination. Its results will be very good and people will support us because youth, women, farmers… all of them are angry and disappointed. In the coming election, people will vote for us”
