It may be recalled that Akhilesh Yadav had given a final offer of 17 seats to the Congress party on Monday. However, the Congress had been demanding the 21 seats which it had won in the 2009 general elections.As per SP sources, the 17 seats offered to the Congress comprised two of its bastions Amethi and Rae Bareli besides Barabanki, Sitapur, Kaiserganj, Varanasi, Amroha, Saharanpur, Gautambudh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Fatehpur Sikri, Kanpur, Hathras, Jhansi, Maharajganj and Baghpat.Meanwhile, failing to get a response from the Congress till Tuesday, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav released another list announcing the names of five more candidates including that for Varanasi which was among 17 seats offered to the Congress.What is more, the recent departure of the Jayant Chaudhury-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) from the opposition bloc intensified the discord between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party.Initially, with the RLD also a part of the alliance, the Congress had requested only 15 seats in UP. After the RLD’s exit, the Congress revised its demand to 20-21 seats, while the Samajwadi Party is only willing to spare 17.However, so far, the Samajwadi Party has announced 32 candidates for the upcoming general elections. What stood out in the list released by the party on Tuesday was the candidature of Shivpal Yadav who has been fielded from Badaun in western UP. Badaun is considered to be a SP stronghold represented in the Lok Sabha by Dharmendra Yadav (Akhilesh’s cousin) twice. However, in 2019, he had lost the seat to BJP candidate Dr Sanghmitra Maurya, daughter of Swami Prasad Maurya, by a slender margin.
Source link
