Akhilesh Yadav and Jayant Chaudhary announced the SP-RLD alliance on social media for the general elections scheduled for later this year.

Lok Sabha Polls: Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav Friday announced his party’s alliance with the Jayant Chaudhary-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. An RLD spokesperson said the SP will leave seven seats for their (RLD) nominees in western Uttar Pradesh.

Akhilesh and Chaudhary announced the alliance on social media for the general elections scheduled for later this year. “Congratulations to everyone on the alliance of RLD and SP. Let us all unite for victory,” Yadav said in a post on X.

Chaudhary, while retweeting Yadav’s post said: “Always ready to protect national and constitutional values. We expect all workers of our alliance to move forward together for the development and prosperity of our region.”

The RLD chief also shared pictures of him and Akhilesh shaking hands.

Seat-sharing finalised

An RLD spokesperson told PTI that the seat-sharing deal was finalised at a meeting between the two leaders.

“The RLD will contest seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh,” he said. But the spokesperson did not name the specific seats.

Uttar Pradesh has 80 Lok Sabha seats.

SP-RLD alliance

Both the parties had contested the 2022 assembly elections in an alliance in which the SP had won 111 seats while the RLD bagged 8 seats.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls also, the RLD was part of the SP-BSP alliance. The RLD had got Mathura, Baghpat and Muzaffar Nagar seats but it lost on all the three while the SP and the BSP had won 5 seats and 10 seats, respectively.

The RLD’s core vote bank has been the Jat population. The Lok Sabha constituencies where there is maximum Jat population are Muzaffarnagar, Kiarana, Bijnor, Mathura, Baghpat, Amroha and Meerut. These could be the seats on which the RLD is likely to contest, sources said.

Though the RLD did not have enough strength to send Chaudhary to the Rajya Sabha, the SP supported him in his election.

After the two parties, which are part of the opposition INDIA alliance, finalised their plan to go ahead together in the Lok Sabha polls, it is to be seen how the Congress proceeds in terms of seat-sharing in Uttar Pradesh.

Congress holds seat-sharing meet with INDIA allies

Notably, the Congress on Wednesday, held a seat-sharing meeting with Samajwadi Party leaders in Delhi.

“We’ve shared details of each seat with each other…I hope that the alliance happens before the (Bharat Jodo Nyay) Yatra reaches Uttar Pradesh,” Congress leader Salman Khurshid had said.

The Congress is holding seat-sharing talks with all its alliance partners before launching the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls.

2024 Lok Sabha Elections

INDIA or ‘Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance’ is a group of opposition parties, including the Congress. The parties have come together to take on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and prevent it from winning a third straight term at the Centre in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

As the 2024 Lok Sabha elections draw near, India’s political landscape is undergoing a significant reshuffling. The emerging INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) consortium is gearing up to challenge the NDA, setting the stage for an electoral showdown.

Earlier in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the NDA won 353 seats, the UPA stood at 91, and Others won 98. The voting was staggered in seven phases between April 11 and May 19, in which around 67 per cent of the nearly 900 million eligible people exercised their franchise to elect 542 members of the Lok Sabha.

(With inputs from agencies)