The Congress and its INDIA bloc ally Samajwadi Party have set in motion the process to make the alliance work at the grassroots level in Uttar Pradesh, with the district units of both the parties starting to hold joint meetings of their cadres in the presence of coalition candidates. While SP's former MLC Udaiveer Singh is co-ordinating at the state level, the party has also shared the details of 25 district unit heads and prominent leaders from the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies that the Congress is contesting from as part of the seat-sharing deal, sources said. Also, the Congress has sent a list of leaders to be included in the state-level coordination committee comprising state unit president Ajay Rai, Congress Legislature Party leader Aradhana Mishra, former minister Nassimuddin Siddiqui, state organisational secretary Anil Yadav, and Saharanpur and Sitapur candidates Imran Masood and Nakul Dubey. It also shared the details of its district unit heads and prominent leaders from the 63 seats that the SP is contesting from. Ajay Rai said, “We have shared the names of our leaders for the state-level cordination committee as well as names and contact details of our district units, prominent leaders from Assembly constituencies under the 63 Lok Sabha seats. They (SP) have also shared with us the details of their office-bearers from the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies being contested by our candidates. These lists have been shared with the local leaders, who are holding meetings with the alliance candidates to prepare the strategy.” A joint meeting took place at the Congress' state headquarters in Lucknow on Thursday, with SP leader and alliance candidate Ravidas Mehrotra along with district Congress president Ved Prakash Tripathi and others in attendance . After the meeting, Tripathi said an 11-member Lok Sabha-level and a 15-member Assembly segment-level co-ordination committees have been formed to support the alliance candidate from the Lucknow seat. “Today, we called ward- and city-level office-bearers, the Lucknow Lok Sabha incharge as well as incharges of 5 Assembly constituencies from the seat and a common strategy was chalked out,” Tripathi added. A day before, a co-ordination committee meeting in Amroha saw a protest by the alliance leaders against Congress' Amroha candidate Danish Ali who recently joined the party. Of the 17 seats, the Congress has so far declared candidates for only 13. Apart from the Amethi and Raebareli segments, the party is still to declare candidates from Prayagraj and Mathura. Sources said the party is considering bringing in former SP MLA Ujjwal Raman Singh, the son of former Prayagraj MP Rewati Raman Singh. From Mathura, the party is mulling over the name Anil Chaudhary, a Jat leader, they said.
