After UP, Mayawati’s BSP and Akhilesh Yadav’s SP announce Lok Sabha poll pact for Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand

The MP and Uttarakhand seat division announcement came a week after the two parties announced seat sharing in UP. In UP BSP will contest 38 seats, SP 37.

Updated on: Feb 25, 2019, 15:35:09 IST

Hindustan Times, Lucknow | By Pankaj Jaiswal

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The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-Samajwadi Party (SP) alliance on Monday announced a poll pact to fight Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand with the former establishing a dominant position in the seat-sharing arrangement. The SP will contest three of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in MP while the BSP contest the rest.

Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav on Monday announced a poll pact for MP and Uttarakhand. (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT PHOTO)

The Samajwadi Party will contest Balaghat, Tikamgarh, and Khajurago seats in Madhya Pradesh.

In Uttarakhand which has 5 Lok Sabha seats, the SP will contest the Garhwal (Pauri) seat and the BSP will fight in three, according to a joint statement by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati

With this the SP-BSP alliance has officially spread to three states. The two parties had announced their alliance on January 13 in Lucknow.

The Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand seat division announcement came a week after the two parties announced seat sharing in Uttar Pradesh where the BSP will contest 38 seats and the SP will fight in 37.

After leaving the Congress out of the poll pact, Akhilesh said earlier this month that the Congress was part of it and two seats were given to the grand old party in the alliance. While announcing their alliance Mayawati and Akhilesh had said that the alliance would not field any candidate at Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constituencies, represented by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi respectively.

Last week, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav appeared to criticise Akhilesh for the delay in naming candidates and questioned the poll pact with Mayawati.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pankaj Jaiswal
Pankaj Jaiswal is Bureau Chief, Uttar Pradesh. He covers-analyses politics, and assists Hindustan Times reporters across the state. He has 30 years of experience in print media reporting. Based in Lucknow, he started his journalism career at a national English daily in Kanpur after graduating from Christ Church College. He joined Hindustan Times, Lucknow edition, as part of the launch team in 1997. He’s covered everything from rural distress to science, environment, wildlife, and crime. He has travelled extensively in Uttar Pradesh for rural, development, political, and election reporting. His continued interest in rural issues, rural distress, and development journalism has fetched him a handful of prestigious awards and fellowships. Pankaj is a photojournalist too. He clinched the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting—First Prize in 2009 and Third Prize in 2006—for exposing Bundelkhand’s devastating drought and distress: crop failures, farm suicides, migration, debt, and the injustice of meagre compensation cheques between Rs 10 and Rs 20 to farmers by the government from crop loss. He also has been awarded with Hindustan Times internal 'Journalist of the Month' citation over half a dozen times. His relentless reporting in Hindustan Times pulled the Bundelkhand crisis out of obscurity and forced it into the national spotlight, prompting media and government action on one of India’s most neglected regions. Over a decade, he filed hundreds of hard-hitting stories, travelling repeatedly from Lucknow deep into Bundelkhand. He also received the Special Mention KC Kulish International Award 2009. Pankaj also did long-haul political reporting on the most intense political family feud—’The Yadav Family Feud’—between 2016 and 2022.Read More