SP-Congress deal sealed in UP: What next for INDIA bloc as clock ticks down to Lok Sabha elections 2024

The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress party have finally agreed on a seat-sharing arrangement for contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as part of the INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress will contest 17 seats while the SP and other parties of the alliance will field its candidates in 63 of the 80 parliamentary seats in politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. Also, the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP will contest Madhya Pradesh’s Khajuraho Lok Sabha seat and will in return support the Congress in the rest of the state’s 29 seats in the state, as part of the deal.

The announcement on February 21 is the first seat-sharing agreement of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), an amalgamation of leading opposition parties who have resolved to fight together in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

The inaugural meeting of the Opposition coalition was held in Patna on June 23. Eight months since, the alliance has faced many setbacks. The biggest, of course, is from Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar, who has now switched his party Janata Dal's (United) allegiance to the NDA. Kumar, who holds a record of sorts for his nine oaths as Bihar CM, was considered the architect of the INDIA bloc.Other blows to the opposition alliance were Jayant Chaudhary's RLD deciding to leave it and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress refusing to enter into an alliance with the Congress in West Bengal.