Ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav has offered 17 seats to Congress as a “last offer”.
Both the parties are part of a grand Opposition alliance—INDIA bloc, which was formed to defeat BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Earlier, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said he would join the Congress's ongoing Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday only if the seat-sharing is finalised.
"Talks are going on. Lists have come from here and there. The moment the seats are distributed, the Samajwadi Party will join Congress's Nyaya Yatra," Yadav reportedly said.
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As per India Today report, the Congress wants seats like Moradabad and Ballia, the discussion on which is still going on.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Samajwadi Party won the Moradabad seat. In the mayor's election in Moradabad, the Congress ended up in second spot and lost by a few thousand votes.
It is said that the Congress also wants the Ballia seat for its state president Ajay Rai. Ballia is considered one of the strongholds of the Samajwadi Party.
The report said that the Congress has given a list of 28 seats to the Samajwadi Party, out of which, 10 seats have a significant Muslim population.
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Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party on Monday announced 11 more candidates for Lok Sabha elections.
The party has also fielded candidates on important Lok Sabha seats like Muzaffarnagar and Ghazipur. Harendra Malik has been given the ticket from Muzaffarnagar and gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari's brother Afzal Ansari has been given the ticket from Ghazipur.
The Samajwadi Party has fielded Rajesh Kashyap from Shahjahanpur, Usha Verma from Hardoi, Rampal Rajvanshi from Misrikh, RK Chaudhary from Mohanlalganj, SP Singh Baghel from Pratapgarh, Ramesh Gautam from Bahraich, Shreya Verma from Gonda, Virendra Singh from Chandauli and Neeraj from Amla Lok Sabha seat.
Samajwadi Party had earlier released the first list of candidates on January 30, in which the names of 16 candidates were declared.
