"Seats Will Be Allocated Properly": Akhilesh Yadav On Talks With Congress

Following Uttar Pradesh Congress in-charge Avinash Pandey's remarks that the Samajwadi Party is adopting a 'one-sided' policy in Uttar Pradesh, party's Chief Akhilesh Yadav asserted on Wednesday that there will be an alliance in the state and that the seats will be allocated 'properly'.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) announced the names of 16 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The SP has offered 11 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh to the Congress.

Both the Congress and the SP are members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), formed to take on the BJP-led Centre.

"There will be an alliance in Uttar Pradesh and seats will be allocated properly. We will try to throw the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out of the state," Yadav said while speaking to ANI in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri.

"The Samajwadi Party believes that the candidate who can take on the Bharatiya Janata Party will get the ticket. We are not inclined towards any particular candidate. Efforts will be made to defeat the BJP," he added.

Earlier today, Avinash Pandey said, "The 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."

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 the SP's bastion, the seat was held by party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and it was vacated after his death on October 10.

Akshay Yadav has been fielded from Firozabad, while from Banda, the SP has fielded Shivshakar Singh Patel.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)