Lucknow: On what seems to be the first concrete step in a while towards forging a strong INDIA alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday made their seat-sharing deal public.
According to the seat-sharing pact for the Lok Sabha polls, Congress will field candidates from 17 seats while the SP will do so in 63 seats. There are a total of 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, making it the state with the highest number of seats in the lower house of Parliament.
Read More: Centre hikes sugarcane MSP by 8% amid farmers protest
According to the seat-sharing pact for the Lok Sabha polls, the constituencies that the Congress will contest from are Amethi, Kanpur Shahar, Fatehpur Sikri, Bansgaon, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Mahahrajganj, Varanasi, Amroha, Jhansi, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur, Barabanki, Deoria, and Rae Bareli.
Also Read: Farmers Protest: 24-year-old protestor dies of ‘head injury’ as Haryana Police drop tear gas shells
While the INDIA alliance ran into several hurdles over seat sharing deals with several parties and the exit of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar from the Mahagathbandhan pact, Wednesday’s development comes at a time when even the ruling faction is yet to announce its seat sharing deal with smaller parties across the country.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh had earlier said that he would join Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra only if his party’s offer to the Congress over the seat-sharing pact for the Lok Sabha polls is accepted. Although it seems that the party’s request has been kept, Akhilesh did not join the yatra on Monday.
Meanwhile, party sources said the SP candidates for the respective seats will be decided by president Akhilesh.
