In the posters, Akhilesh holds bow and arrow on the back seat, whereas Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is driving the chariot.

With SP and Congress engaged in finalising the nitty-gritty of a pre-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh, posters have appeared at several places in Varanasi depicting Rahul Gandhi as Lord Krishna and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as Arjuna on a chariot.

Even as hectic behind the scene parleys were on in SP to finalise the list of candidates and complete alliance formalities with Congress, posters have already appeared in Varanasi featuring the Gandhi scion and the UP chief minister.

Akhilesh holds bow and arrow on the back seat, whereas Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is driving the chariot.

The posters also carry Samajwadi party poll symbol 'cycle' and slogan 'Vikas Se Vijay Ki Ore Chale Do Maharathi'.

These posters appeared at Beniyabagh, Chetganj and other places in the city.

Even as the party leadership, officially clarified that an alliance will be forged only between the SP and Congress on Thursday, the posters were already grabbing eyeballs since Tuesday.

Samajwadi Party leader Kiranmoy Nanda said on Thursday, "Yes we are entering into an alliance with Congress and seats will be announced soon. There were no talks of an alliance with RLD"

On the series of meetings, reportedly conducted between the leaderships of the two parties, Trilok Tyagi clarified," Samajwadi Party leaders talked to us in the past but there were no talks on alliance after that."

Until Thursday morning, political pundits were speculating a Bihar-like grand alliance between Rashtriya Lok Dal, Samajwadi Party and Congress, amid a series meetings between the SP leadership and the two likely alliance partners.

Uttar Pradesh will have a seven-phase poll beginning 11 February and filing of nomination papers for the first phase began on Monday.

With inputs from PTI