SP ignores Cong, announces 6 candidates for UP by-polls

Lucknow: A day after the Assembly poll results in Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir were declared, the Samajwadi Party (SP) delivered a blow to Congress by announcing its candidates for six of the 10 seats in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh by-elections, set to take place later this year.

Despite being part of the Opposition INDIA alliance, which includes Congress, the SP’s move has added strain to an already fragile relationship between the two parties.

The SP’s announcement follows Congress’s demand for five seats in the bypolls. However, Congress had not ceded any seats to the SP during the Haryana Assembly elections, which has fuelled growing tensions between the two key alliance partners.

According to the SP’s candidate list, Tej Pratap Yadav will contest from Karhal, a seat vacated by SP president Akhilesh Yadav after his Lok Sabha election victory from Kannauj. Naseem Solanki, wife of jailed SP leader Irfan Solanki, will contest from Sisamau in Kanpur. Other candidates include Mustafa Siddiqui from Phulpur (Prayagraj), Ajit Prasad from Milkipur (Ayodhya), Shobhavati Verma from Katehari, and Jyoti Bind from Majhwan.

Shobhavati Verma, wife of SP MP Lalji Verma, was previously SP’s MLA from Katehari. Ajit Prasad, the son of Faizabad (Ayodhya) MP Awadhesh Prasad, will contest from Milkipur. Jyoti Bind is the daughter of SP leader Ramesh Bind, who ran in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Mirzapur.

The ten seats facing by-elections include Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhwan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur City), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj), and Kundarki (Moradabad). Of these, five seats were previously won by the SP, while the other five were held by the BJP and its allies.

Nine of these seats became vacant after their MLAs were elected as MPs in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The Sisamau seat, however, fell vacant due to the disqualification of Irfan Solanki following his conviction in a criminal case.

Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai had earlier stated that the party had submitted a proposal to contest five seats: Majhwan, Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Khair, and Meerapur. These seats were all won by the BJP in the 2022 Assembly elections.

Congress has yet to clarify its position on seat-sharing with the SP following this announcement. Meanwhile, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary remarked that the final seat-sharing decision would be taken by SP national president Akhilesh Yadav.

SP’s move has provoked reactions from the BJP. Rakesh Tripathi, the BJP spokesperson, linked the decision to the Haryana poll results, claiming that the SP’s announcement reflects its attitude toward Congress post-Haryana. “The SP is telling Congress its place,” Tripathi said.

Buoyed by its Haryana win, the BJP is confident of securing all ten seats in the Uttar Pradesh by-elections. These polls are being viewed as a key test for the INDIA alliance’s unity and effectiveness ahead of the 2024 general elections.