The alliance talks have officially moved from hallway whispers to hard numbers. Congress Uttar Pradesh in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam told PTI that his party submitted a formal list demanding 175 to 200 seats out of the 403 available in the state assembly. He emphasized that the list was shared with Samajwadi Party leadership a couple of days ago, signaling a shift from vague cooperation to structured negotiation.
Reception in Lucknow was chilly. A senior Samajwadi Party leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed the demand as disconnected from electoral reality. “I think our leader Akhilesh Yadav has made it clear that winnability is the sole criterion,” the leader said. “Anyone can demand anything but in politics, to reach an acceptable and meaningful solution, you have to move beyond posturing.”
The skepticism rests on a brutal historical record. Congress last held power in Uttar Pradesh in 1989. In the 2022 assembly elections, the party managed a dismal two seats, a drop from its seven-seat haul in 2017. Even the 2024 Lok Sabha results, where Congress won six seats while its ally SP secured 37, have not convinced many within the SP camp that the Gandhi party carries the weight they claim.
Akhilesh Yadav, however, keeps the diplomatic door open. Speaking to reporters in Lucknow on Friday, he framed the alliance around a singular target: removing the BJP from power. “The Congress, the Samajwadi Party, and the INDIA bloc must be strengthened,” Yadav said. “Our collective goal is to see that the BJP is removed. To ensure the ouster of the BJP, we will make people understand, and we will do so.”
Behind the scenes, strategic shifts are driving these conversations. The recent replacement of Congress state chief Ajay Rai with MLA Aradhana Misra Mona is widely viewed as a tactical move to smooth out pre-poll alliance friction. Rai, who favored a post-poll arrangement, was replaced by Mona, whose strong rapport with SP leadership is seen as a catalyst for this seat-sharing exercise. The next round of detailed discussions will focus on categorizing seats based on this new “winnability” metric, a process that will define the opposition’s strength for the 2027 contest.