With consensus yet to be reached with the Samajwadi Party (SP) on details of seat-sharing in Uttar Pradesh, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is moving closer to joining the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the coming days, sources within the party told The Indian Express on Thursday. The BJP, party insiders said, was offering it four Lok Sabha constituencies, a Union ministry, and two state ministries.

If the RLD jumps ship, it will be a major blow to the Opposition INDIA alliance in UP at a time when the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) are also attempting to resolve differences over seat-sharing. A senior RLD leader said, “Things have been almost finalised between us and the BJP. The formal announcement may happen soon, perhaps in a day or two.”

An RLD leader also provided details of the seat-sharing arrangement. “The BJP is giving us four seats for the Lok Sabha polls, one Union ministry, and two state ministers in UP. There are some issues on some seats but they will be worked out. One of the seats they are refusing to give us is Muzaffarnagar. That, too, will be worked out,” the leader said. Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan has been representing Muzaffarnagar in the Lok Sabha since 2014.

Sources in the BJP also confirmed progress in the talks between the two parties. A senior BJP leader in Delhi said, “Our party is offering them Baghpat, Mathura, Hathras, and Amroha. The party leadership has refused to give them Muzaffarnagar and Kairana. We are even offering Bijnor and Saharanpur.”

If the RLD quits the INDIA alliance, it will further weaken the beleaguered alliance in UP. Last month, SP president Akhilesh Yadav announced that the RLD would be allotted seven constituencies as part of a seat-sharing arrangement but the lack of clarity about which constituencies the party would get had created a sense of uncertainty in party ranks.

SP insiders had earlier said that the RLD would get Baghpat, Kairana, Mathura, Hathras, and Fatehpur Sikri while discussions were on for Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bijnor, and Amroha. RLD leaders said there had been issues over the SP wanting its leaders to contest some of these seven seats on their symbol. Among these seats was Kairana, where the SP wanted to field Iqra Hasan, the sister of SP MLA Nahid Hasan.

Akhilesh on Thursday, while speaking to reporters in Varanasi, did not provide a clear answer on the future of the SP-RLD partnership. “The BJP knows how to break parties and when to take whom. The BJP also knows how to cheat. You have seen how cheating happened in the recent Chandigarh mayoral elections. The BJP knows how to buy parties. It is not by coincidence that the BJP has become the biggest party. They know where to send ED, CBI, and the IT department,” he said.

For the last couple of days, there have been reports of RLD leaders meeting the BJP leadership. Amid this, RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, who was elected Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh in 2022 with the SP’s support, maintained silence.

On Wednesday, Akhilesh appeared to dissuade the RLD from joining the NDA. “Jayant Chaudhary is an educated person and he understands politics well. I am hopeful that he will not let the fight for farmers and prosperity of UP be weakened,” he told reporters in Lucknow. SP MP Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh’s wife, who is in Delhi to participate in the Parliament session said Wednesday she does not believe that Chaudhary would join hands with the BJP, which has “an anti-farmer record”. “I don’t think he will take any decision that would hurt the interests of farmers,” she said.

The RLD and the SP have been allies in UP since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when the Jayant-led party contested three constituencies as part of a “Mahagathbandhan” that also included the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The RLD lost all three seats while the SP won five of the 37 it contested. In the 2022 Assembly polls, the SP won 111 seats out of the 347 it contested while the RLD won nine of the 33 constituencies where it was in the fray.