Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has announced he would set aside 11 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh for the Congress, generating “positivity” in
the INDIA camp ahead of Nitish Kumar’s imminent departure and after Mamata Banerjee’s go-it-alone decision in Bengal.

“We are starting a friendly alliance with the Congress, with 11 seats (for the Congress). This will continue after our victory. Team India and the strategy of the PDA will change the course of history,” Akhilesh posted on X in Hindi on Saturday.

“PDA” is an Akhilesh coinage for “Pichda (backward), Dalit and Alpasankhyak (minority)”.

A few hours after the Samajwadi president’s post, party spokesperson Udaiveer Singh said the Congress might eventually be given “more than 11 seats”.

State Congress president Ajay Rai, who had in the past accused the Samajwadis of a rigid approach towards allies, said Akhilesh had “made a good gesture towards the alliance”.

“We have a committee under our leader, Mukul Wasnik, which will soon meet INDIA partners to reach a final decision,” Rai said.

Dwijendra Tripathi, an adviser to the state Congress, said: “The 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh play a crucial role in government formation at the Centre. Akhilesh has spread positivity across the alliance and sent out a clear message that his sole aim is defeating the BJP.”

Congress sources said Akhilesh had in the past been unwilling to give the party more than 10 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats but seemed to have decided to be “rational” this time.

“The way some INDIA partners are behaving is what he had expected from them all along. We had discussed this at several of our meetings in Delhi in recent weeks,” an All India Congress Committee member, who didn’t want to be named, said.

“Our leaders said, ‘Let these black sheep come out of the closet on their own’. They had joined us to break us but didn’t know that we had already predicted (what they would do).”

The Congress leader added: “As Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra is
progressing, things are changing on the ground. He has been able to convince people that they need true prosperity and not what is projected as such by the current dispensation. Our assessment is, we can defeat the BJP if we reach the people consistently and with the right approach.”

The Samajwadis won five seats and the Congress just one from Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 general election. The Rashtriya Lok Dal, another INDIA partner, drew a blank. They all, however, have a substantial following in the state and can win more seats if they can transfer their votes to each other.