No joint rallies by Cong, SP as campaigning for UP bypolls ends

Campaigning for the bypolls to nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh concluded on Monday without the Samajwadi Party and the Congress holding a single joint campaign.

The leaders of both parties, however, claimed that "all is well" in the alliance and attributed the absence of joint rallies to Congress leaders being busy with "poll duties" in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, also up for bypolls on November 20.

BJP ally Rashtriya Lok Dal claimed there was a crack in the alliance.

"Barring the Samajwadi Party, the INDIA bloc was not visible on the ground. The Congress wasn't visible, because neither did it extend any help to the SP, nor was the SP willing to take any help from them," Rashtriya Lok Dal's UP unit chief Ramashish Rai told PTI.

The Congress on October 24 opted out of the bypoll and announced coordination committees the next day for all nine assembly seats, ostensibly to support the SP.

"Our cadres backed the SP fully in all seats but if you intend to ask about the leaders of both the parties not sharing dais during by-polls then that was because most of us have been campaigning in Maharashtra," UP Congress Committee chief Ajay Rai told PTI on phone from Maharashtra.

The SP campaign was spearheaded by its chief Akhilesh Yadav, and his uncles Ram Gopal Yadav and Shivpal Yadav.

"To the cynics, I must say all is well in the SP-Congress alliance. The Congress had set up coordination committees and this helped in coordination. The joint campaigns were missing due to leaders busy in assembly election campaigns in Maharashtra and Jharkhand," SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said.

"One shouldn't read too much into the absence of joint campaigns as the UP bypolls coincided with assembly polls in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. I think the coordination between the two parties was fine at the ground level," Chaudhary said.

Congress Election Committee member PL Punia said the party stayed away from the fray because the main goal is to defeat the BJP.

"Our cadres indeed wanted the party to contest polls but at the same time, the larger goal was to ensure that our alliance kept the BJP away. That is why after opting out of the UP bypolls, the Congress fully backed the Samajwadi Party," he said.

The SP-Congress alliance was successful in limiting the BJP to 36 seats against the 43 seats SP 37, Congress six in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

However, after a surprise defeat in Haryana, the Congress decided to pull out from the bypoll contest in UP.

Immediately after the Haryana results, the SP unilaterally named candidates for some of the by-poll seats in UP, including those being considered by the Congress.

Nadeem Ashraf Jaisi, an old Congress hand who has since joined AAP, said the party's decision to not contest the bypolls was confusing at best.

"First, you hold 'Samvidhan Bachao Sankalp Sammelan' in all the by-poll bound constituencies, then give the impression that both the alliance partners would contest an equal number of seats before suddenly withdrawing from the contest. This is very confusing," Jaisi earlier told PTI.

The bypoll results will be announced on November 23.