New Delhi: The Congress was not, too, happy over SP chief Akhilesh Yadav giving 11/80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh to the grand old party, but saw it as a silver lining that the opposition alliance was working well in the crucial state amid setbacks in West Bengal and Bihar. “See, Akhilesh Yadav has just said that the seat-sharing has started on a positive note with agreement on 11 seats for the Congress. That is a welcome start, but it does not mean this number is final. Our senior leaders are still holding seat-sharing discussions with the SP and the number of seats that the Congress will contest in Uttar Pradesh will go up. The good part is that the alliance is working fine in the state and we will fight the upcoming elections together,” AICC secretary in-charge of UP Pradeep Narwal told ETV Bharat.
The Congress leader’s comments came soon after SP chief Akhilesh Yadav announced that 11 seats for Congress in Uttar Pradesh was a good start for the alliance and this cooperation will move forward with a victory formula. Earlier, the Uttar Pradesh Congress had suggested that the Alliance Committee demand 28 parliamentary seats in seat sharing, but the SP was not okay with that number.
Recently, Akhilesh Yadav announced that he had agreed to give seven seats to ally RLD and that discussions with the Congress were on. During initial consultations with the SP, the Congress Alliance Committee had cited the 2009 Lok Sabha polls data when the grand old party had won 22 parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh saying the party should get at least that many seats in 2024 given its status as a national party, according to party insiders.
However, the SP leaders had argued that seat-sharing talks should be based on the present ground-level situation, which indicated that the Congress, had just 1/80 Lok Sabha seats and just 2/403 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh. Former party chief Sonia Gandhi represents the lone Rae Bareli parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha while former chief Rahul Gandhi, who lost his Amethi parliamentary seat in 2019, represents Wayanad in Kerala in the Lower House of Parliament.
According to party insiders, Congress National Alliance Committee member Ashok Gehlot is in direct contact with Akhilesh Yadav over seat sharing and the two are expected to meet soon. “I am not going to comment on the number of seats or over what Akhilesh Yadav has said as the matter is still being discussed and it is for the high command to make a final statement. I can only express the confidence that the alliance is going on smoothly in Uttar Pradesh and the issues in other states will also be resolved,” Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwary told ETV Bharat.
Over the past weeks, the Congress had tried to rope in Mayawati’s BSP in the opposition alliance, but the former Chief Minister made it clear that she will contest the coming Lok Sabha elections alone. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the SP and the BSP had come together to defeat the BJP, but the alliance did not work in the state. Before that, the SP and the Congress had forged an alliance for the 2017 Assembly polls, but the pact did not work.
Before the 2019 national elections, Rahul Gandhi, who was the Congress chief, had appointed former leader Jyotiraditya Scindia as in charge of western Uttar Pradesh while Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Later, when Scindia moved to the BJP in 2020, Priyanka was given the charge of the entire UP. She tried hard to revive the Congress in the crucial state, but the party’s performance in the 2022 Assembly polls was poor. Recently, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge named veteran Avinash Pande as AICC in-charge of UP.
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