Congress and Samajwadi Party announce alliance for UP polls

NEW DELHI: Ending speculation over their alliance, Samajwadi Party and Congress today announced that the two parties will contest the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh together.

Both the parties have agreed on a 298-105 seat sharing agreement, where Samajwadi Party will contest on 298 seats and Congress will fight on 105 seats.

At a joint press conference, SP state president Naresh Uttam said: "SP and Congress have forged an alliance and will contest UP assembly polls together."

UP Congress chief Raj Babbar hoped the SP-Congress alliance will reap a bumper electoral harvest in the state and fulfil aspriations of all sections of the society.

He said a Common Minimum Programme will be drafted within a week.

Talks between top Congress and SP leaders had been going on for the last several days for but an announcement got delayed as the two parties refused to scale down their demand for the number of seats each would contest.

Sources said the alliance materialised after Congress President Sonia Gandhi intervened.

They said top leaders of both the parties finalised the seat sharing arrangement around wee hours today.

At one stage senior SP leader Naresh Agarwal had said the possibility of an alliance was "almost over" and blamed the "stubborn" attitude of Congress for the deadlock.

Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had initially offered 100 seats to Congress but they demanded 120.

Samajwadi Party then argued that it had 234 sitting legislators and there were some others who would also contest. Thus, the ruling party needed at least 300 of the 403 seats.

But, Congress leaders had informed the SP that in such a scenario, there cannot be an alliance.

(Inputs from PTI)