Congress eyes to contest five seats in Uttar Pradesh bypolls

Uttar Pradesh Congress stakes claim on 5 Assembly seats, forming alliance with Samajwadi Party for bypolls.

The Uttar Pradesh Congress unit on July 21 staked claim for 5 of the 10 Assembly seats left vacant in the State after the Lok Sabha election.

Of the 10 vacant seats, 5 were held by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA and the rest were with the Samajwadi Party (SP), an INDIA bloc ally of the Congress. After a meeting with party leaders and workers, Congress State president Ajay Rai said the party will support SP in five seats and is strong and ready to fight in the rest.

“We held a meeting with party leaders and workers from seats held by the NDA. We will support our INDIA bloc partner Samajwadi Party in five seats. In the rest seats, we are strong and ready to fight. The final decision on seats will be taken by the [national] leadership, but our claim is on the five remaining seats,” Mr. Rai told The Hindu.

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The Assembly seats vacated by the SP are Millipore, Kundarki, Katehari, Karhal, and Sisamau. Katehari seat was vacated by Lalji Verma who got elected to Lok Sabha from Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat. Likewise, the SP president Akhilesh Yadav resigned from Karhal Assembly seat after winning from Kannauj parliamentary seat. Sisamau was left vacant after sitting MLA Irfan Solanki was disqualified following conviction in a criminal case.

The NDA vacated Phulpur, Majhawan, Khair, Merrapur and Ghaziabad Assembly seats after their MLAs got elected to the Lok Sabha.

The SP, the principal Opposition party in the State have agreed that an alliance will take place but remained non-committal on the number of seats. The party said it will respect Congress during seat-sharing in the State, but expected a ‘return of favour’ in States like Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jharkhand going to polls later this year.