People familiar with the discussions say the Samajwadi Party is examining an allocation of roughly 60 to 70 of the state’s 403 Assembly seats to Congress, while Congress figures have argued for about 105 seats, broadly reflecting the arrangement the two parties used when they fought the 2017 election together. Neither party has formally announced a seat formula.
The differences also extend beyond numbers. Rae Bareli and Amethi, two districts closely associated with Congress’s national leadership, are among the areas where competing claims are understood to have emerged. Samajwadi Party negotiators are also seeking greater clarity on the candidates Congress could field before agreeing to transfer constituencies where the SP believes its own organisation is stronger.
The discussions remain fluid, and public statements from Congress underline that no final bargaining position has been fixed. Rajendra Pal Gautam, the All India Congress Committee in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, said on Wednesday that the party was preparing organisationally across all 403 constituencies and indicated that alliance discussions would be taken up separately. His remarks suggested that the present exchanges are exploratory rather than a completed negotiation.
Congress leaders have for months pressed for an early agreement, arguing that candidates and local units need sufficient time to prepare. The party has also said that the quality and winnability of constituencies should matter as much as the headline number of seats. Samajwadi Party leaders, meanwhile, have been assessing constituency-level strength before deciding which seats can be left to an ally.
Congress regards the agreement as important to its effort to rebuild booth-level structures, while the SP is trying to protect constituencies where its candidates have invested years of organisational work.
The 2017 formula is central to Congress’s case. Under that arrangement, Congress contested 105 seats while the Samajwadi Party fought most of the remaining constituencies. The alliance performed poorly, with the SP winning 47 seats and Congress seven, as the Bharatiya Janata Party secured a large majority. Samajwadi Party leaders therefore have little incentive to reproduce the old division automatically and are placing greater emphasis on present organisational strength and candidate viability.
Congress points instead to the opposition alliance’s performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election as evidence that cooperation can be electorally productive when seats are allocated strategically. The Samajwadi Party won 37 of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 parliamentary constituencies and Congress six, giving the two parties a combined 43 seats in the state.
That result strengthened the political case for maintaining the partnership into the Assembly election, but it did not settle how the vastly larger pool of state constituencies should be divided. Assembly contests depend more heavily on local candidates, caste combinations, district organisations and constituency-specific rivalries, making a direct conversion of the 2024 parliamentary arrangement difficult.
Rae Bareli and Amethi illustrate that complication. Congress won both Lok Sabha constituencies in 2024, with Rahul Gandhi elected from Rae Bareli and Kishori Lal Sharma from Amethi. Congress consequently views the surrounding Assembly segments as important to rebuilding its state organisation, while the Samajwadi Party has its own local networks and potential claimants in parts of the two districts.
The SP’s request for a list of likely Congress candidates is also tied to its stated preference for winnability. Congress has been conducting its own exercise to identify possible nominees and assess organisational capacity across the state, while district leaders have sought an early decision so that prospective candidates are not left preparing for constituencies that may eventually go to an ally.
Akhilesh Yadav’s party remains the larger partner in the opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh, and Congress leaders have publicly accepted Yadav as a central figure in the state contest. At the same time, Congress’s state leadership has repeatedly signalled that it wants a more substantial Assembly presence than it held after the 2022 election, when it won only two seats while contesting independently.
