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Lok Sabha polls: SP announces 11 names after Akhilesh Yadav's INDIA bloc seat talks update
Samajwadi Party announces 11 candidates for Lok Sabha polls in UP amid seat-sharing talks with Congress.
The Samajwadi Party on Monday released its new list of 11 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, this hours after party chief Akhilesh Yadav said that the seat sharing talks between Congress and his party ‘are advancing’.
The Samajwadi Party and Congress are partners in the INDIA bloc. SP's new list comes days after the party had announced 16 candidates for the upcoming general elections. Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple has been fielded from Mainpuri, a seat once represented by party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.
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Monday's list comprises 11 candidates fielded from Muzaffarnagar, Hardoi, Pratapgarh, Aonla, Shahjahanpur and others. Don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's brother Afzal Ansari has been fielded from Ghazipur.
Check Samajwadi Party's new list for Lok Sabha 2024
| Candidate | Constituency |
| Harendra Malik | Muzaffarnagar |
| Neeraj Maurya | Aonla |
| Rajesh Kashyap | Shahjahanpur |
| Usha Verma | Hardoi |
| Rampal Rajwanshi | Misrikh |
| R K Chaudhary | Mohanlalganj |
| S P Singh Patel | Pratapgarh |
| Ramesh Gautam | Bahraich |
| Virendra Singh | Chandauli |
| Shreya Verma | Gonda |
| Afzal Ansari | Ghazipur |
Will join Rahul Gandhi's Yatra only if…., Akhilesh puts condition
Earlier in the day, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav made his participation in the Congress' Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra conditional to a decision on seat-sharing. He stated that he would join the yatra as soon as the seats for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections are distributed between the two parties.
"Talks are currently ongoing, lists have come from their side and ours as well. The moment the seats are distributed and decided, the Samajwadi Party will join Congress's Nyaya Yatra," Yadav told reporters on Monday.
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SP offers 17 seats to Congress
SP has extended an offer for 17 Lok Sabha seats to Congress. Rajendra Chaudhary, the chief spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party, told PTI, “We have presented a final offer of 17 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress.” However, he didn't disclose which seats were offered.
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The Samajwadi Party had contested in an alliance with Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. While the SP had won just five seats, the BSP had bagged 10. The RLD, which is likely to join the NDA, had failed to win any seat.
