UP Bypolls: The Congress and the Samajwadi Party are likely to contest the upcoming UP by-polls together against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA, Congress sources told ABP News.
The top leaders of both parties, a significant part of the opposition bloc INDIA, will meet after the Parliament session to chalk out the strategy for the by-elections. The Monsoon Session of Parliament is scheduled to begin on July 22 and conclude on August 12. The budget will be presented on July 23.
The Akhilesh-led SP is likely to contest seven seats, and Congress will field candidates on three seats in the by-polls, the sources said. The Congress sources further said that the grand old party may also consider giving some seats to the Samajwadi Party in assembly polls in states like Maharashtra and Haryana.
Discussions on seat sharing have begun between the two parties for the upcoming by-elections for 10 assembly seats in UP. The final decision on this will be taken after deliberations.
Among the 10 assembly seats going to polls, five were previously held by the SP, three by the BJP, and one each by BJP allies RLD and NISHAD Party.
The 10 assembly seats, which are set to go to bypolls, are Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur Nagar), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj), and Kundarki (Moradabad).
Nine of the 10 seats fell vacant after the MLAs resigned following their victory in the Lok Sabha polls. Prominent among these seats was Karhal (Mainpuri), which fell vacant after SP chief Akhilesh Yadav resigned following his election to the Lok Sabha from Kannauj.
SP's Irfan Solanki's Sisamau assembly seat in Kanpur Nagar was declared vacant following his disqualification in view of his seven-year imprisonment by the MP/MLA court.
On Wednesday, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed that his party’s performance in the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh will be better than that of the Lok Sabha elections.
The Election Commission is yet to announce the schedule for the by-elections to 10 assembly seats in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh.
"We will have a better outcome in the upcoming by-elections than the Lok Sabha polls," Yadav said while talking to reporters at the Samajwadi Party's (SP) headquarters in Lucknow.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the SP won 37 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, up from five in 2019. The BJP got 33 seats, down from 62.
Claiming that there was "infighting in the BJP in Uttar Pradesh," Yadav said, "Because of a fight for power, the people are suffering." Of the 10 assembly seats in the state where a bypoll is due, nine fell vacant after the MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha in the recent polls. The Sismau assembly seat fell vacant following SP MLA Irfan Solanki’s disqualification after he was sentenced to a seven-year jail term in an arson case.