Lucknow, January 31: There seems to be no headway as far as prospective alliances in the INDIA bloc are concerned. After the Samajwadi Party (SP) announced the names of 16 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Uttar Pradesh Congress in-charge Avinash Pandey said on Wednesday that the Samajwadi Party's one-sided alliance policy is not at all acceptable to Congress and Congress workers. The SP has offered 11 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh to the Congress.
Samajwadi Party (SP) president and former U.P. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, on January 27 said that their "alliance" is off to a good start in the State. Both the Congress and the SP are members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), formed to take on the BJP-led Centre.
"Samajwadi Party is not following the alliance dharma; SP is making one-sided announcements in the alliance. The list released yesterday also included many seats on which the Congress Party had a claim. What the Samajwadi party is doing is very dangerous and Congress itself is not getting information about it." said UP Congress incharge Avinash Pandey said.UP Congress in-charge Avinash Pandey also denied talking about seat sharing in Uttar Pradesh and claimed that this list was released without his knowledge.
"Congress follows the coalition dharma well and wherever Congress made an alliance, it followed its coalition dharma," Avinash Pandey added. Meanwhile, The SP has fielded Dimple Yadav, wife of former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, from Mainpuri, Shafiqur Rahman Barq from Sambhal and Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow.
Dimple Yadav of the Samajwadi Party won the Mainpuri parliamentary byelection in December 2022, defeating Raghuraj Singh Shakya of the BJP by a margin of 2,88,461 votes. Considered as SP's bastion, the seat was held by party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and it got vacated after his death on October 10. Akshay Yadav has been fielded from Firozabad, while from Banda, the SP has fielded Shivshakar Singh Patel. "Hoga PDA ke naam, abki ekjut matdan," the SP said.
In the current Lok Sabha, the SP, that had fought in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2019, has three MPs while BSP has 10 MPs. Sonia Gandhi, who represents the Rae Bareli seat, is the lone Congress MP from the State. On January 19, the SP and RLD had announced their alliance for the Lok Sabha election, with SP leaving seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh for the RLD. Later on 27 January Akhilesh Yadav confirmed the offer of 11 seats to the Congress.
"Our cordial alliance with the Congress is off to a good start with 11 strong seats. This trend will move forward with the winning equation. 'INDIA' team and 'PDA' (Picchda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) strategy will change history," Yadav had said in a post on X.