Samajwadi Party-Congress finally stitch alliance in UP; Cong gets 17 seats

Lucknow: A day after the Samajwadi Party (SP) threatened to walk out of the alliance with its I.N.D.I.A. partner Congress if the latter did not accept its offer of 17 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, the two parties on Wednesday finally managed to stitch an electoral alliance in the politically most crucial state that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

The grand old party has accepted the offer of 17 seats, though a few seats may be swapped between the two parties.

Sources said that the deadlock over seat sharing was finally broken after Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra spoke to SP president Akhilesh Yadav over phone on Wednesday morning.

The alliance between the two parties appeared to be on the brink of collapse on Tuesday after the SP ultimatum. Akhilesh's absence from the 'Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra' being undertaken by senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was taken to be a pointer in this regard.

Akhilesh had earlier made it clear that he would join the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra' only after the seat-sharing deal with the grand old party was finalised. Akhilesh was scheduled to join Rahul in the 'Yatra' in Amethi on Monday but he chose to skip the same. He was not present in the Yatra in Raebareli also on Tuesday.

According to the sources, the SP has offered the seats of Amethi, Raebareli, Kanpur, Jhansi, Barabanki, Sitapur, Kaiserganj, Varanasi, Amroha, Saharanpur, Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, Fatehpur Sikri, Hathras, Maharajganj and Baghpat. Sources, however, said that a few seats might be swapped and that the leaders of the two parties would hold discussions in this regard.

The SP has already released three lists of 31 candidates. According to the SP leaders, the party would contest 62 seats, Congress 17 and one seat would be left for Dalit leader Chandrashekhar's party.