Day After Haryana Result, SP Snubs Congress In UP Bypoll, Releases List Of 6 Candidates

Samajwadi Party has released a list of six candidates for the upcoming UP bypoll. As per talks between SP and Congress, the latter wanted to contest five seats in the election.

A day after Congress faced a crushing defeat in the Haryana Assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday snubbed a seat sharing request with its INDIA bloc ally, as it released a list of its candidates for six of ten assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, where bypolls are due later this year.

Despite Congress not sharing any seat with the SP in Haryana elections, talks had been on for some time between the the two parties to enter into a seat-share deal for the UP bypolls. However, after the Congress's latest debacle, the SP has ignored the five-seat request put across by its ally and has named six candidates of its own. 

The SP has fielded Tej Pratap Yadav from Karhal, Naseem Solanki from the Sisamu seat, Mustafa Siddiqui from Phulpur (Prayagraj), and Ajit Prasad from Milkipur (Ayodhya). As per the list, Shobhawai Verma has been given party ticket from Katehari, while and Jyodi Bind has been fielded from Majhwan seat.

In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had contested 17 seats and won six out of them. On the contrary, SP had won 37 out of the 62 seats it contested. According to these outcomes, the offer was only for three seats, whereas the Congress wanted to contest on five. But with the Samajwadi Party releasing a list of candidates, it is quiet evident that all is not well between the parties and the Congress's loss might have started a rift in the INDIA bloc.

'Didn't Take INDIA Bloc Into Confidence': Congress On SP's By-Poll Candidate List

After the party's list announcement, the Congress UP in-charge said that the Akhilesh Yadav-led party had not taken the INDIA alliance Coordination Committee into confidence or discussed the matter with Congress before releasing the list and deciding the candidates.

UP Congress in-charge Avinash Pandey said: "Samajwadi Party has not discussed with INDIA alliance Coordination Committee nor were we taken into confidence (before releasing the names)."

Congress Didn't Give Single Seat To SP In Haryana But Gave Entire State To BJP

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party, which seems to be disappointed by the Congress's performance in the Haryana polls, hit out at the grand old party for not contesting the polls with it and instead "giving the entire state to BJP".

SP leader Ravidas Mehrotra said that the party has fielded candidates in constituencies where it had defeated the BJP in the previous polls. He also said that if Congress had allied with SP in Haryana assembly elections then the INDIA bloc would have been in power in the state.  

"In all the 6 seats, Samajwadi Party has been ahead of BJP in defeating them. On the remaining 4 seats, talks are underway with the Congress party and we are hopeful that we will form an alliance...If Congress had an alliance with SP and AAP in Haryana, then today INDIA alliance would have been in power in Haryana. Congress did not give a single seat to Samajwadi Party but gave the entire state to BJP. We want to defeat BJP in the by-elections in UP, so we have announced the list of 6 candidates," the SP leader said.

INDIA Bloc Leaders Slam Congress For Being 'Overconfident'

Another opposition bloc ally, Shiv Sena (UBT) had criticised Congress for failing to reach an agreement with other parties for Haryana elections and perceived it to be one of the reasons that led to the "unexpected" loss.

Sanjay Raut claimed that the Congress had turned a winning match into a loss fur to its overconfidence and arrogance of local leaders. "Even in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the same thing happened. Internal issues prevailed within the party, which led to the party losing both the states," Uddhav Sena's mouthpiece, Saamana stated, warning Congress leaders in Maharashtra to learn from Haryana setback.

It also highlighted that the win in Jammu Kashmir was only possible due to the Congress's alliance with National Conference, which secured most of the seats.

TMC MP Saket Gokhale had also hit out at the Congress for its "arrogance and entitlement".  He slammed the INDIA bloc ally for not accomodating regional parties just because Congress felt it was winning.

AAP, which also held pre-poll talks with Congress to forge alliance in Haryana, raised questions on the latter's poll strategy and called it out for being "overconfident".

Uttar Pradesh By-Elections

The need for the Uttar Pradesh By-elections was created after nine MLAs were elected as MPs in the Lok Sabha polls. Another seat, Sisamau, fell vacant after SP MLA Irfan Solanki was disqualified after being convicted in a criminal case.

Now, the UP bypoll will be held in 10 Assembly seats in UP. These include  Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur city), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj) and Kundarki (Moradabad).