The Congress and Samajwadi Party have reached an agreement regarding seat-sharing for the upcoming general elections in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress will field candidates in 17 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats, while the Samajwadi Party will contest the remaining 63 seats. This announcement marks the first major seat-sharing deal made by the opposition alliance, which was formed in June with the goal of defeating Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Aside from its strongholds of Raebareli and Amethi, which it lost to the BJP in the 2019 election, the Congress will also field candidates from Kanpur Nagar, Fatehpur Sikri, Basgaon, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Maharajganj, Amroha, Jhansi, Bulandshahar, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur, Barabanki, and Deoria. Additionally, the party has been allotted Varanasi, the constituency currently held by Narendra Modi.
The Samajwadi Party will assign seats to regional parties from its share. However, one regional party, Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, is not expected to be part of the alliance after aligning itself with the BJP despite agreeing to a seven-seat deal with the SP last month.
During a press conference in Lucknow, Samajwadi Party General Secretary Rajendra Chaudhary and Congress General Secretary Avinash Pandey discussed the seat-sharing agreement and warned the BJP of a potential defeat in the 2024 elections. Chaudhary stated that the alliance is a message to the country and emphasized that due to UP’s influence, the BJP will lose power in 2024. Pandey mentioned that the Congress has yet to finalize candidates for its seats, including the high-profile constituencies of Amethi and Raebareli.
The Congress-Samajwadi Party seat-sharing deal comes after Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, issued an ultimatum to the Congress, stating that talks must be completed before he can participate in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’. The success of the negotiations between the two parties is seen as an indication of the opposition alliance’s ability to challenge the BJP’s electoral machinery.
The seat-sharing deal was finalized with the intervention of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Sonia Gandhi, who reached out to Akhilesh Yadav and held discussions with Rahul Gandhi and other senior leaders from both parties. Sonia Gandhi played a significant role in helping state leaders understand the need for compromise, considering the Congress’ poor performance in previous elections.
This announcement is a significant boost for the opposition alliance, which has faced challenges in maintaining unity since its formation last year. The exit of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and disagreements over seat-sharing have posed obstacles, while the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab have decided to contest the elections independently. However, the alliance hopes that the recent mayoral election victory in Chandigarh will have a positive impact. The Congress and Samajwadi Party are now focused on selecting candidates and preparing for the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh.
