Lok Sabha Elections 2024: SP-Congress discuss UP seat-sharing, winnability and past performances emerge key criteria

The Congress and Samajwadi Party have agreed on keeping the performance of parties in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2022, their hold in specific seats and the winnability of candidates as the key criteria while finalising the seat-sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha elections.

On Tuesday, the two parties met to discuss seat-sharing in UP and charted out the process to be adopted for finalising the seats each party in the INDIA bloc would contest. Speaking to The Indian Express, a Samajwadi Party leader said that the party was flexible and willing to accommodate “winnable” candidates.

The parties would first present a list of seats that they could potentially win along with the names of their probable candidates. This would be followed by an assessment of which party’s candidate would be best suitable to contest from the seat considering its social and demographic components. The candidate for a seat with a significant OBC population, for instance, would be decided on an assessment of the popularity of each OBC candidate, an SP leader said.

Congress and SP, the two most significant partners in UP from the INDIA bloc, are also likely to focus on their performance in the past elections while finalising candidates. While the SP is keen on keeping its performance in the 2022 Assembly elections as a key criterion, the Congress is keen on showcasing its 2009 Lok Sabha elections as a benchmark.

Both parties have failed to make a mark in the previous two outings during the general elections. The Congress had performed poorly in both the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls in UP, winning two and one seats respectively. The Samajwadi Party, on the other hand, won 5 seats in the last two general elections.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, however, the Congress bagged 21 seats while the SP won 23. In the 2022 Assembly polls, the SP won 111 seats with a vote share of 32% while its alliance partner RLD won 8 seats with a vote share of 2.85%. The Congress, on the other hand, bagged only one seat of the 399 seats it contested and its vote share dropped to 2.33%.

The Samajwadi Party is also learnt to have agreed to leave Amethi and Rae Bareli for the Congress if members of the Gandhi family contest from the seats. In turn, the Congress has also agreed not to field candidates from seats where Akhilesh Yadav and his family members are candidates.