Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday revealed that the Congress had sought 181 of the 403 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh for the 2027 elections, while asserting that the two parties would contest the polls together.
However, it remains to be seen how many seats the SP, the principal Opposition party in Uttar Pradesh, will concede to its I.N.D.I.A. bloc ally.
Sources said senior leaders of the two parties were likely to meet on November 17 to begin formal negotiations on a seat-sharing formula.
Speaking at an event organised by a national daily in New Delhi, Yadav was asked about the Congress’s demand for seats in the Assembly elections, scheduled for February-March next year.
When asked whether the Congress had sought more than 100 seats, he indicated that the figure was higher. Asked if the demand was for 200 seats, he said it was slightly lower.
When the figure of 180 was suggested, Yadav replied, “Add one more to 180”, indicating that the Congress had demanded 181 seats.
The SP, being the larger alliance partner in the state, is expected to bargain hard during the negotiations, particularly in view of the Congress’s poor performance in the previous Assembly elections.
The two parties had contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections together and won 43 of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 parliamentary seats. The SP secured 37 seats and the Congress six, while the BJP’s tally fell from 62 in 2019 to 33.
However, in the 2022 Assembly elections, the Congress contested 399 seats on its own but won only two, compared with seven in 2017.
The SP, on the other hand, won 111 of the 347 seats it contested in 2022, a substantial improvement over its tally of 47 seats in 2017.
Though Yadav’s remarks indicate that the alliance remains intact, the proposed seat-sharing negotiations will test the ability of the two parties to reconcile their competing demands ahead of the elections.
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