AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi has said his party is willing to work with “like-minded” parties seeking to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party from securing a third consecutive term, adding another element to an opposition contest already shaped by seat-sharing discussions between the Samajwadi Party and Congress.
Congress MP Imran Masood, however, urged the Samajwadi Party to settle its alliance with Congress quickly and criticised Owaisi’s intervention. Masood said an agreement should be finalised if the two parties intend to fight together; otherwise, Congress should continue its own preparations. He also argued that AIMIM’s participation could divide opposition votes, a claim Owaisi and his party have consistently rejected.
Owaisi has presented his outreach as an attempt to broaden opposition cooperation while securing political representation for Muslims. He has said no single group can defeat the BJP on its own and indicated that AIMIM will decide its alliance course by October 2. His remarks have placed pressure on opposition parties to clarify whether they are open to a wider arrangement or intend to retain their existing partnerships.
The Samajwadi Party and Congress have both indicated that they expect to contest the Uttar Pradesh election together, but a final seat-sharing formula has not been announced. Akhilesh Yadav has repeatedly backed continuation of the alliance, while Congress leaders have pressed for an early settlement so that constituency-level preparations can begin without uncertainty.
Discussions are understood to involve both the number of seats each party would contest and the constituencies to be allotted. The two parties cooperated in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh, when the Samajwadi Party emerged as the largest party in the state’s parliamentary delegation and Congress improved its position. That result has remained central to their argument for maintaining opposition coordination. The Samajwadi Party won 37 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2024, Congress won six and the BJP secured 33, reshaping opposition calculations ahead of 2027.
The BJP, meanwhile, has stepped up organisational activity of its own. Party president Nitin Nabin began a two-day visit to western Uttar Pradesh on September 21, with Meerut and Saharanpur at the centre of meetings designed to review electoral preparedness, strengthen booth-level structures and engage elected representatives and party workers.
Nabin’s programme includes interactions with MPs, MLAs, office-bearers and local organisational teams. Party functionaries have said the western Uttar Pradesh exercise is intended to assess grassroots readiness and improve coordination ahead of the Assembly campaign. Senior BJP leaders are undertaking similar organisational reviews in other regions of the state.
Western Uttar Pradesh is a significant arena for all the principal parties because of its mix of urban centres, farming districts and socially diverse constituencies. Electoral competition there has involved the BJP, Samajwadi Party, Congress, Rashtriya Lok Dal and other parties, making local alliances and candidate selection important to campaign strategy.
The BJP won a majority in the 2022 Assembly election and retained power under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The Samajwadi Party finished as the principal opposition, while Congress won only a small number of seats. The next election therefore presents Congress with a strategic choice between expanding its organisational footprint and negotiating a workable share of constituencies within an alliance led numerically by the Samajwadi Party.
For the Samajwadi Party, the immediate task is to preserve its own statewide organisation while accommodating allies without creating friction among local aspirants. Yadav has also been directing workers to expand voter contact and strengthen the party’s PDA outreach, centred on backward classes, Dalits and minorities.
