A phone call from Priyanka, Akhilesh’s ‘all’s well’ and Cong accepts 17 seats

The Congress will contest from 17 seats in Uttar Pradesh and the rest 63 of the 80 will be for the Samajwadi Party and the other INDIA alliance partners, according to the Congress-SP seat-sharing deal which sailed through after Priyanka Gandhi Vadra made a phone call to Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday morning.

Ahead of the formal announcement on Wednesday evening jointly by the leaders from both parties, Akhilesh Yadav indicated that everything was well and the alliance was intact. The seat-sharing talks witnessed a meltdown after Akhilesh Yadav said he won’t attend Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra until the Congress sealed the deal. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra intervened and had a telephone conversation with Akhilesh on Wednesday morning.

As the deal was announced, the leaders of both parties credited Akhilesh Yadav and Mallikarjun Kharge for finalising and fine-tuning the seat-sharing.

A total of 17 seats was what Akhilesh made as his last offer to the Congress and almost gave an ultimatum that he would not join Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in the state until the Congress accepted the offer. 17 seats were a notch higher than Akhilesh’s first offer of 11 seats which they later agreed to increase to 15 and then finally 17.

There is no conflict and everything will be clear in front of you very soon, Akhilesh said on Wednesday adding all is well that ends well. Samajwadi Party will contest from the maximum number of seats ‘as many as we can contest’, Akhilesh said.

UP has 80 Lok Sabha constituencies and the Samajwadi Party so far announced 31 candidates. In the latest list of candidates, the Samajwadi Party has fielded Akhilesh’s uncle Shivpal Yadav from Budaun parliamentary constituency. Others include Surendra Singh Patel from Varanasi, Iqra Hasan from Kairana, Praveen Singh Aron from Bareilly and Ajendra Singh Rajput from Hamirpur. In its first list, the SP had fielded Dharmendra Yadav, the son of party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger brother Abhay Ram Yadav, from Budaun.

Priyanka Gandhi’s role in the seat-sharing talks emerges at a time when her Lok Sabha debut from mother Sonia Gandhi’s former constituency Raibareli is being speculated.

Will both Priyanka, Akhilesh be present at Rahul’s Bharat jodo Nyay Yatra?

Priyanka Gandhi is likely to join Rahul Gandhi’s yatra on February 24 from Moradabad. When the yatra entered the state, Priyanka said she was hospitalised and hence was not present. Akhilesh Yadav too gave a caveat that he would join the yatra only after Congress seals the seat-sharing deal.