The Congress and the Samajwadi Party have started discussions on seat sharing, senior party leader Salman Khurshid said today, dispelling speculation that such an event may not happen in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha. The parties will stay in touch and should be able to decide on the major seats very soon, he told NDTV.
Asked about the outcome of the discussion, Mr Khurshid said they looked into "all possibilities, probabilities, and winnabilities". Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal will be included in the alliance since it is already an ally of the Samajwadi Party, he said.
"We have shared details of each seat with each other... I hope that the alliance happens before the (Bharat Jodo Nyay) Yatra reaches Uttar Pradesh," he told reporters.
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav confirmed that the parties have made progress after the meeting with the National Alliance Committee in Delhi.
"We have covered halfway distance and the remaining half will be covered soon," he told reporters.
The Samajwadi Party -- known for its reservations about the Congress -- has been further upset as the seat sharing deal fell through in the recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. The party expected to get six seats.
Then state Congress chief Kamal Nath's "Don't know any Akhilesh Vakilesh" remark had soured the relationship further and for a time, many doubted if the INDIA bloc wall be able to run through Uttar Pradesh.
Over the years, the Congress influence in Uttar Pradesh has been shrinking and this has shrunk its heft with the Samajwadi Party. The big blow came in 2017, when their alliance was routed by the BJP, which came to power in the state with an overwhelming majority.
In 2019, the SP had offered only two seats to the Congress – the Gandhi strongholds of Amethi and Raebareli.
But in Amethi, Rahul Gandhi had lost to the BJP's Smriti Irani – an outcome that is expected to cast its shadow over the Congress portion this time.
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