Over a month after announcing an alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) announced the allocation of seats to each partner on Thursday.
In a statement, SP president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati announced that while the SP will contest on 37 seats, the BSP will fight on 38. Amethi and Rae Bareli — the pocket boroughs of the
Rahul family — have been left for the Congress.
The three other seats left by the BSP-SP alliance are Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar and Mathura for the RLD.
On January 12, when the SP and BSP announced their alliance, both Mayawati and Akhilesh had said they would contest 38 seats each and leave four seats for other parties including two for Congress. But the SP sacrificed one seat from its quota to pacify the RLD to remain in the alliance.
As per the list, the SP will contest eight Lok Sabha seats in west UP, 16 in east UP, nine in central UP and two each in Terai and Bundelkhand region.
Akhilesh is likely to contest from Kannauj and Mulayam from Mainpuri.
The SP has been given all the five seats it had won in the 2014 parliamentary elections - Azamgarh, Kannauj, Mainpuri, Budaun and Ferozabad. In the Lok Sabha by-elections, the SP had wrested the prized Gorakhpur and Kairana seats from the BJP.
Because of its sway in eastern UP, the BSP will contest 17 seats of the region, including Ambedkar Nagar from where Mayawati is expected to contest.
The BSP will contest 11 seats of western UP, eight in central UP and two in Bundelkhand region.
Out of the 16 reserved constituencies, the BSP will contest on 10 seats while the SP will field its candidates from six of these seats.
As per the list, the SP will field its candidates from Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Kheri, Hardoi, Lucknow, Unnao, Faizabad, Barabanki, Bahraich, Gonda, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Ballia, Azamgarh, Chandauli, Varanasi, Robertsganj, Mirzapur, Phulpur, Allahabad, Banda, Jhansi, Kanpur, Etawah, Kannauj, Mainpuri, Kushinagar, Etah, Firozabad, Hathras, Budaun, Kaushambi and Kairana.
The 38 constituencies from where the BSP will field its candidates are Bijnor, Amroha, Aonla, Shahjahanpur, Bhadohi, Sitapur, Misrikh, Mohanlalganj, Pratapgarh, Sultanpur, Akbarpur, Kaiserganj, Fatehpur Sikri, Basti, Domariyaganj, Nagina, Bansgaon, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Salempur, Deoria, Ghosi, Lalganj, Machhalishahr, Jaunpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Ghazipur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Fatehpur, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Dhaurahra, Shravasti, Farrukhabad, Agra, Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Meerut and Saharanpur.
