Akhilesh-Mayawati pact: BSP to contest on 38 seats, SP gets 37

The 37 seats in the SP quota include Kairana, Moradabad, Sambhal, Rampur, Mainpuri, Firozabad, Badaun, Bareilly, Lucknow, Etawah, Kanpur, Kannauj, Jhansi, Banda, Allahabad, Kaushambi, Phulpur, Faizabad, Gonda, Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, Varanasi and Mirzapur.

The BSP will contest from Saharanpur, Bijnor, Nagina, Aligarh, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Dhaurahara, Sitapur, Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Kaiserganj, Basti, Salempur, Jaunpur, Bhadohi and Deoria, among other constituencies.

The SP-BSP alliance will not field any candidate from Amethi and Rae Bareli, the bastion of Congress.

The SP is also going to fight on Varanasi seat, the home turf of PM Modi. Both the parties have forged an alliance to counter the BJP in the general elections.

However, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav expressed his displeasure over the alliance in a press conference in Lucknow today. He questioned why Akhilesh gave “half” the seats to Mayawati’s party.

The remarks come days after SP patriarch created a stir in Parliament, saying he wished that Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns to power.