RLD allocated 3 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: The contours of the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance in Uttar Pradesh became clear on Tuesday with the Rashtriya Lok Dal being allocated three seats and former UP chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav declaring that Congress was very much part of the alliance.

The three seats which the RLD would contest are — Mathura, Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar.

As per the earlier announcement made by the SP and BSP, the former would contest 37 and the latter 38 seats out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Two seats — the Gandhi family bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli  —had been left for the Congress.

The three seats which had been left for others were Tuesday formally given to the RLD to contest.

At a joint press conference with RLD leader Jayant Chowdhary in Lucknow, Mr Yadav who was fielding questions on the Congress said: “Cong-ress is with us, it is a part of our alliance. Why do you (the media) repeatedly ask if Congress will co-me with us or not? I have said before also that Con-gress is part of the Mahagatbandhan, they will contest two seats in our alliance”.

Mr Yadav said that the alliance partners would jointly take on the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls.  Tho-ugh the SP-BSP alliance is considered to be a formidable one in UP and the same tie-up had won a ser-ies of by-elections in  the state, the Congress has be-en seemingly unhappy at being given just two seats.

Following the SP-BSP tie-up, Congress brought in Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia as general secretaries from UP East and West respectively.

Besides rejuvenating the party workers, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has given the new-inducted general secretaries the task of preparing for the 2022 Assembly polls in UP.