Lok Sabha elections 2019: SP to contest 37 seats, BSP 38 seats in Uttar Pradesh; read full list of seats here

The Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Thursday announced their seat-sharing formula in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls: The SP will contest 37, and the BSP 38 seats in the 80-seat Assembly. Reports have previously said that the SP-BSP coalition will leave the Lok Sabha seats of Rae Bareli and Amethi to United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, respectively.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati & Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav have decided that SP will contest on 37 seats while BSP will fight on 38 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2019. pic.twitter.com/k2Gee6iFyy

— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) February 21, 2019

In addition, the SP will field a candidate who will contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi, CNN News18 reported. The development comes amid talks of a potential deal between the SP-BSP alliance and the Congress against the ruling BJP. However, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has previously said that despite his “immense respect” for Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the grand old party was kept out of the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh to correct “poll arithmetic” in order to defeat the BJP. The Congress had announced that it would go it alone in all the 80 Lok Sabha seats. Meanwhile, Akhilesh Yadav’s father and veteran SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav has called the SP-BSP alliance “ inappropriate and against the interests of Uttar Pradesh .” Mulayam has also extended support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the polls.