Uttar Pradesh Bypolls: Congress' hopes of getting another seat to contest for the upcoming UP bypolls seem to have been dashed again as Samajwadi Party candidate filed his nomination papers on Wednesday. As the seat-sharing deadlock continued between the two parties, the Congress, despite agreeing to contest the bypolls in alliance with the SP, had come up with a fresh demand of getting the Phulpur seat. This request was apart from the Ghaziabad and Khair seat, which the SP had already given to the grand old party.
Although SP had announced its candidate for Phulpur seat, the final decision was supposed to be out by today evening after Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav held talks regarding the matter. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge too had reportedly dialed Yadav on Tuesday (October 22) to end the seat sharing deadlock.
Congress had reportedly called party's UP unit chief Ajay Rai and Avinash Pandey to Delhi to brainstorm and arrive at a conclusion for whether or not the party should contest the by-election.
Meanwhile, as the decision for Phulpur was awaited, the SP candidate from the assembly seat, Mohammad Mujtaba Siddiqui, filed his nomination papers. Siddiqui is a former MLA and was fielded by the SP as its candidate from Phulpur in the 2022 Assembly polls as well. However, he lost to BJP's Praveen Patel by 2,765 votes. The recent development has once again triggered uncertainty as to whether or not Congress would be able to get another seat for the UP bypolls.
The grand old party had demanded five out of the nine seats where bypolls will be held on November 13. However, SP released a list of seven candidates after the Haryana Assembly polls result, leaving its ally upset with its move. The SP had announced its candidates for seven seats including Karhal, Katehari, Kundarki, Phulpur, Sisamu, Majhawan, and Meerapur leaving the Congress party red-faced.
According to sources, Siddiqui has said that if the SP high command asks him to retract his nomination papers he would do so happily. He said that he had filed his papers on the instructions of party supremo Akhilesh Yadav. The SP leader further said that if Yadav decided to let Congress contest from Phulpur he would not mind and would instead participate in the campaigning. Notably, no Congress leader or worker was present when Siddiqui filed his nomination today.
Bypolls are set to be held to nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh. These include Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur city), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj) and Kundarki (Moradabad). Eight of these seats fell vacant after their MLAs were elected as MPs in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year.
Bypolls in the Sisamau seat are being held due to the disqualification of SP MLA Irfan Solanki, who was convicted in a criminal case. The results will be announced on November 23.