The suspense over seat sharing between India Bloc ally Samajwadi Party (SP) and Congress was resolved late on Wednesday night when SP chief Akhilesh Yadav announced through a post on Will contest elections on SP symbol on all nine assembly seats. This announcement dealt a big blow to Congress. This made it clear that the India Bloc allies have failed to reach a consensus on seat sharing.
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Akhilesh wrote on X that ‘It is not about winning the seat’. Under this strategy, the joint candidates of ‘India Alliance’ will contest elections on all the 9 seats on the symbol of Samajwadi Party, ‘Cycle’. He further said that Congress and Samajwadi Party are standing together, shoulder to shoulder, united for a big victory. India Alliance is going to write a new chapter of victory in this by-election. He said that with the coming together of Congress Party’s top leadership to booth level workers, the strength of Samajwadi Party has increased manifold.
The SP leader claimed that due to this unprecedented cooperation and support, every worker of ‘India Alliance’ on all the 9 assembly seats has been filled with new energy by taking the pledge of victory. He said that this is an election to save the country’s constitution, harmony and honor of PDA. That is why our appeal is: not even a single vote should be reduced, not even a single vote should be divided. This harmonious unity and solidarity of ‘India Alliance’ in the interest of the country will write new history today and tomorrow also. Today, while doing a photo interview with Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh wrote that we have decided to save ‘Constitution, Reservation, Harmony’. We have to build the country of dreams of ‘Bapu-Babasaheb-Lohia’.
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Both Congress and SP leaders had claimed that talks regarding seat sharing were going on for several days. However, Siddiqui’s nomination dashed the Congress’s chances of contesting the elections. It is noteworthy that SP had already announced candidates for seven out of nine assembly seats to be voted on November 13, leaving only Khair and Ghaziabad Cantt seats for Congress. However, the Congress party has expressed reluctance to contest these two seats as they are considered traditional strongholds of the ruling BJP, where the grand old party has little chance of victory.
