The Congress announced on Thursday that it will not contest any of the nine seats in the Uttar Pradesh bye-election. The announcement was made by Avinash Pande, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of UP, at a press conference in Delhi while he was accompanied by Congress UP unit president Ajay Rai. “We will work for the INDIA bloc and support and work to ensure a win for INDIA bloc candidates on the nine seats,” Pande said. The Indian Express had reported on Tuesday that the Congress may stay away from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly bypolls as it does not want to contest the two seats that its INDIA bloc ally Samajwadi Party (SP) is offering, citing “unfavourable caste equations”. The Congress had alleged the SP did not follow “alliance dharma” and unilaterally announced candidates for seven of the nine seats where bypolls will be held on November 13. Congress insiders claimed the party refused to contest Khair and Ghaziabad. As per sources in the Congress, the decision was made after a conversation over the phone between the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav late on Wednesday night. In a post on X on Wednesday night, Yadav had said that “it is not about seats but about victory”. “Under this strategy, the joint candidates of ‘India Alliance’ will contest on all 9 seats on the Samajwadi Party’s election symbol ‘cycle’,” he said. “Congress and Samajwadi Party are united and standing shoulder to shoulder for a big victory. India Alliance is going to write a new chapter of victory in this by-election,” he added. “With the coming together of the top leadership of the Congress Party and the workers at the booth level, the power of the Samajwadi Party has increased manifold. With this unprecedented cooperation and support, every worker of ‘India Alliance’ on all 9 assembly seats has been filled with new energy with the resolve to win,” he further said. “This is an election to save the country’s constitution, harmony and the honor of the PDA. That is why our appeal to everyone is that not even a single vote should be reduced, not even a single vote should be divided,” he had said. While the bypolls will be held in Sisamau, Katehri, Kundarki, Karhal, Khair, Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Manjhwa and Meerapur in Muzaffarnagar on November 13 and counting of votes will take place on November 23.
