Congress Eyes Smooth Alliance Talks With SP After Naming New Uttar Pradesh Chief
Congress has appointed Aradhana Misra as its new Uttar Pradesh chief, leveraging her strong rapport with Samajwadi Party leadership to ease upcoming seat-sharing negotiations.
Published : October 3, 2026 at 8:47 PM IST
New Delhi: The Congress is looking at smooth seat-sharing negotiations and coordination with its major ally Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh after appointing Aradhana Misra as the new state chief ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.
According to party insiders, besides helping the Congress attract the influential Brahmin community in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state, Misra will also play a role in wooing the women voters ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.
The BJP has been in power in Uttar Pradesh since 2017, and the Congress is looking at strengthening the INDIA bloc in every possible way to defeat the saffron party ahead of next year's high-stakes elections.
The Congress-SP alliance did not work in the 2017 assembly elections but was successful in limiting the BJP to 33/80 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP had won 62 seats in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In 2024, the Congress won 6/17 seats it contested, while the SP won 37 of 63 seats it fought.
The final tally has given hope to both the Congress and the SP for the 2027 assembly polls and also fired the ambitions of its state leaders, who often made strong statements against each other over the past months.
Outgoing UP Congress chief Ajay Rai never minces his words when it comes to taking on the SP leaders, a trait that often miffed the major ally leadership, including former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who has had very good relations with the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, and Lok Sabha MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
The appointment of Misra (also known as Mona Tiwari) as the new state unit chief has come in this backdrop. She has had good relations with Yadav, being the daughter of Congress veteran Pramod Tiwari, who is a Rajya Sabha member at present.
Earlier, when the SP was in power in the state under late former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, Tiwari, who was the Congress Legislative Party leader in the state assembly, had very good relations with him. Recently, both Misra and Tiwari had met Yadav at his residence in Lucknow and discussed the prospects of the INDIA bloc. According to Congress insiders, while Misra will call the shots in the state unit, Tiwari will guide her through the complex political equations in the BJP-ruled state.
“No doubt, Aradhana Misra has a good rapport with Akhilesh Yadav as compared to Ajay Rai. This will help in the seat-sharing negotiations with SP. Now that the key party change has been made, the seat-sharing process will move forward now,” Congress Lok Sabha MP Tanuj Punia told ETV Bharat.
The grand old party managers had been concerned over the delay in the seat-sharing talks and wanted them to conclude by the end of this month to give time to the potential candidates to prepare the ground.
The insiders said that the Congress plans to contest around 100/403 assembly seats in the state, but is keen that the alliance is respectable in terms of getting seats where the grand old party has better chances of winning rather than getting the seats that have been difficult for the Samajwadi Party over the past years.
"The number 100 flows from the 105 seats the Congress had contested in alliance with SP in 2017 and is justified as the grand old party has gained strength over the past decade," they said.
Over the past months, the Congress and the SP state leaders exchanged strong arguments as a section of the major ally felt the grand old party did not deserve even 50 seats given it could win only 2/ 403 assembly seats in the 2022 elections.
In 2017, the Congress could win just 7/403 seats. The grand old party argues that not only is Congress a national party whose leader, Rahul Gandhi, is taking on the BJP nationally, but the former Congress chief’s popularity also helped the SP win 37 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 national elections.
Punia said that Ajay Rai was adamant on getting maximum seats for the Congress and that stand will not change.
"Our AICC in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam has said that Congress expects over 150 seats. That is going to be the starting point,” he said.
“The Congress had got 105 seats to contest in 2017 based on the ground situation then. We went to elections with 28 MLAs. Our tally came down due to a polarised election. We are asking for more seats this time as our party is on a much stronger wicket in 2026, and the ground situation has changed. Our leader Rahul Gandhi is popular among the SC voters across the state, and this has helped the SP in the 2024 national elections. The Congress is a national party and deserves respect,” he said.
As part of their efforts to strengthen the INDIA bloc, Rahul and Priyanka met ex-BSP, ex-Congress leader Swami Prasad Maurya on Saturday to discuss a likely merger of his outfit Apni Janata Party (AJP) with the grand old party.
Insiders further said that Maurya was rather keen to join the INDIA bloc in the state to secure his Dalit supporters. Besides Maurya, Lok Dal leader Sunil Chaudhary also met Rahul recently to strengthen the INDIA bloc in the western region, where former ally RLD shifted to the BJP in 2024.
Senior state Congress leader Vivek Bansal refused to comment on Maurya but said that the latest changes in the state team were aimed at reviving the traditional vote bank of Brahmins, Dalits, and Muslims.
“Aradhana Misra’s appointment as state unit chief will send a signal to the Brahmin voters who are miffed with the BJP. The Dalits and Muslims are also keen to back the Congress,” Bansal told ETV Bharat.
He said that Aradhana’s presence would certainly help in seat-sharing talks with the SP, as the presence of a seasoned leader like Pramod Tiwari will be very productive. “He understands state politics very well. We need to build a strong alliance of like-minded parties to defeat the BJP in 2017,” Bansal added.
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