India Block’s UP seat sharing agreement finalized, Congress will contest on 17 seats

Lucknow:

India Bloc members this evening said the Congress will contest 17 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming general elections, while the Samajwadi Party will be allotted the remaining 63 seats.

This is the first major seat-share deal announced by the opposition alliance, which was formed in June to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Apart from its strongholds of Raebareli and Amethi (lost to the BJP’s Smriti Irani in 2019), the Congress will field candidates from Kanpur Nagar, Fatehpur Sikri, Basgaon, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Maharajganj, Amroha, Jhansi, Bulandshahar, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur. , Barabanki, and Deoria.

Besides this, it has also been given Varanasi, which is Mr Modi’s constituency.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party will give its share of seats to regional parties; However, at least one of these regional parties, Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, is not expected to play along, with it believed to have realigned itself with the BJP despite agreeing to a seven-seat pact with the SP last month. Has been connected to.

Read | “There was limited time to take a decision…”: RLD leader on BJP alliance discussion

Samajwadi Party general secretary Rajendra Chaudhary and his Congress counterpart Avinash Pandey addressed a press conference in Lucknow, with the former warning against the BJP, which has dominated the electoral landscape of UP in the last 10 years and won 71 seats in 2014. And 62 in 2019.

“The alliance is a message for the country. There are 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP…Akhilesh.”Yes He has repeatedly said that BJP came to the Center from UP (and) because of UP it will lose power in 2024.”

Mr Chaudhary declared, “The situation in the country is very bad… farmers and youth are on the streets. The dream of the Indian alliance is to save the country from the BJP.”

Mr Pandey told reporters that the Congress has not yet decided on candidates for its seats, including the high-profile ones in Amethi and Rae Bareli. “The Gandhi family considers both as ‘home’ and will take a decision soon,” he said, amid speculations that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will make her electoral debut from the latter constituency.

Read | After Sonia Gandhi going to Rajya Sabha, the discussion regarding her Rae Bareli seat has intensified.

The Congress-Socialist agreement has taken place at a time when Akhilesh Yadav had given an ultimatum to the national party a day earlier – ‘Complete the talks otherwise I will not participate in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’.

Read | Akhilesh Yadav’s offer of 15 seats in UP to Congress, and condition of travel

The interaction between the two – seen as a barometer of India’s ability to consistently challenge the BJP’s formidable election-winning machinery – has been under scrutiny for the past few days, especially after Congress-AAP won the Chandigarh mayor election. after. The block’s first electoral victory.

However, until yesterday it looked as if no deal could be reached.

Then Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Sonia Gandhi stepped in.

Sources told NDTV that the two approached Akhilesh Yadav directly for a deal and then spoke to Rahul Gandhi and other senior leaders from both sides to finalize the arrangement.

Read | Sonia, Priyanka Gandhi step in to resolve UP seat-sharing deadlock

Congress sources said Ms Gandhi was important as she helped state leaders understand that some of her demands were “unrealistic” given the party’s dismal overall performance in the 2014 and 2019 elections.

The news is a big boost for the group which has been struggling for unity since its formation in June last year, with disagreements over seat-sharing topping the list of problems to be addressed.

The faction has already seen the ouster of Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar.

On the other hand, after Congress’s Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury continuously criticized Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the ruling Trinamool Congress in Bengal said it is planning to contest 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state on its own.

Read | “No alliance with Congress”: Mamata’s Bengal twist surprises India Bloc

In Punjab, where Congress was defeated by AAP in the last election, the two have been unable to agree on a seat-share agreement. However, the hope is that the mayoral election victory will have a positive impact.

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