{"id":308009,"date":"2019-01-12T10:46:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-12T10:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=308009"},"modified":"2019-01-12T10:46:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-12T10:46:54","slug":"sp-bsp-announce-alliance-for-lok-sabha-elections-to-contest-38-seats-each-in-uttar-pradesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/sp-bsp-announce-alliance-for-lok-sabha-elections-to-contest-38-seats-each-in-uttar-pradesh\/","title":{"rendered":"SP, BSP announce alliance for Lok Sabha elections, to contest 38 seats each in Uttar Pradesh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-308010 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/press-conf-300x194.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"659\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/01\/press-conf-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/01\/press-conf.jpg 509w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 659px) 100vw, 659px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Arch rivals for years Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) announced on Saturday that they will contest together in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, sharing 38 seats each of the 80 in the state while keeping the Congress out of the alliance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">However, the parties said they would leave Rae Bareli and Amethi for the Congress.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cWe would not field candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi,\u201d they said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The other two seats have been kept vacant for \u201cone or two allies\u201d, said BSP chief Mayawati at a press conference jointly addressed by her SP counterpart Akhilesh Yadav at a five-star hotel in Lucknow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Answering questions, Mayawati said the alliance will go \u201cfar beyond\u201d the Lok Sabha polls and their alliance would defeat the saffron party.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The BSP chief further said that the two parties will keep their personal differences aside to end the dictatorial rule of BJP.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Giving reasons for excluding the Congress from alliance, Mayawati said that during the Congress rule over the years, poverty, unemployment and corruption grew. She further said that in case of a tie-up with the Congress in the past, the party did not benefit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cWe ensure our votes get transferred to the Congress. However, they are not able to reciprocate it,\u201d Mayawati said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The joint press conference was held at a Five-star hotel after top leadership of both the parties had recently met in New Delhi to discuss broad parameters of the alliance to defeat the BJP unitedly in the Lok Sabha elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arch rivals for years Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) announced on Saturday that they will contest together in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, sharing 38 seats each of the 80 in the state while keeping the Congress out of the alliance. However, the parties said they would leave Rae [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":308010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2009,1801,2014,2015],"tags":[10575,947,3939,843,283],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308009"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308011,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308009\/revisions\/308011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/308010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}