SP, Cong seal UP seat share pact

The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress on Wednesday announced a seat-sharing agreement for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections for Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, marking the first major breakthrough in contentious seat talks in the beleaguered Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).

- Pankaj Jaiswal and Umesh Raghuvanshi

At a joint press conference, the two parties announced that the SP will contest 63 seats in UP and the Congress 17. In Madhya Pradesh, the SP will contest the Khajuraho seat and the Congress the other 28.

"We will not only fight together, but will defeat the BJP together," Congress UP incharge Avinash Pande said.

"The BJP came to power in 2014 through UP. Now, in 2024, it will exit through UP with SP, Congress, and INDIA bloc ousting the BJP from UP," the SP's Rajendra Chaudhary said.

To be sure, the alliance is looking at an uphill battle in India's most-populous state, where the BJP holds 62 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats. The announcement came days after the Rashtriya Lok Dal hinted that it was leaving the INDIA bloc to join hands with the BJP.

The Congress will contest Rae Bareli, Amethi, Varanasi, Kanpur City, Fatehpur Sikri, Bansgaon, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Maharajganj, Amroha, Jhansi, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur, Barabanki and Deoria, said SP state unit chief Naresh Uttam Patel.