Congress Seeks To Contest Five Seats In Uttar Pradesh Assembly Bypolls, Leaves Five For Ally Samajwadi Party

Congress is planning to contest five seats in the upcoming assembly bypolls in Uttar Pradesh (UP) while leaving the rest five for its ally Samajwadi Party (SP).

UP Congress president Ajay Rai has formed a report in this regard and sent it to the party's high command, leaving the final decision with the Congress' central leadership.

Rai said that the SP will contest those seats which are vacated by SP MLAs, while the other five seats, which had MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ally parties, Congress will contest.

Notably, none of the vacated 10 seats had a Congress MLA. The party has only two MLAs in the 420-seat assembly. Only after it allied with the SP for the 2024 elections, it won six Lok Sabha seats in UP.

Among the 10 seats vacated, five had an SP MLA, three had a BJP MLA and one MLA each was of BJP's ally parties Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and NISHAD party.

The five seats that the Congress wants to contest are Meerapur in Bijnor. Ghaziabad Sadar in Ghaziabad, Khair in Aligarh, Phulpur and Majhawan in Mirzapur.

It has left the seats of Karhal in Mainpuri, Milkipur in Ayodhya, Kundarki in Sambhal, Katehari in Ambedkar Nagar and Sisamau in Kanpur for the SP. The MLAs of four seats became MPs while Sisamau was vacated due to conviction of the MLA.

However, it is unlikely that the SP will let Congress contest these many seats. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress contested 17 seats and the SP 62 seats.