india

Updated: Feb 25, 2019 15:35 IST

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-Samajwadi Party (SP) alliance on Monday announced a poll pact to fight Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand with the former establishing a dominant position in the seat-sharing arrangement. The SP will contest three of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in MP while the BSP contest the rest.

The Samajwadi Party will contest Balaghat, Tikamgarh, and Khajurago seats in Madhya Pradesh.

In Uttarakhand which has 5 Lok Sabha seats, the SP will contest the Garhwal (Pauri) seat and the BSP will fight in three, according to a joint statement by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati

With this the SP-BSP alliance has officially spread to three states. The two parties had announced their alliance on January 13 in Lucknow.

The Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand seat division announcement came a week after the two parties announced seat sharing in Uttar Pradesh where the BSP will contest 38 seats and the SP will fight in 37.

After leaving the Congress out of the poll pact, Akhilesh said earlier this month that the Congress was part of it and two seats were given to the grand old party in the alliance. While announcing their alliance Mayawati and Akhilesh had said that the alliance would not field any candidate at Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constituencies, represented by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi respectively.

Last week, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav appeared to criticise Akhilesh for the delay in naming candidates and questioned the poll pact with Mayawati.