Amid continuing seat-sharing talks with the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has worked out a formula with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), announcing on Friday that it will give the latter seven of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.

Both SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and RLD president Jayant Chaudhary took to social media to talk about the alliance following a meeting between the two at the former’s residence in Lucknow on Friday. In a post accompanied by a photograph of the two leaders on X on Friday, Yadav wrote, “Congratulations to everyone on the alliance of Rashtriya Lok Dal and SP! Let us all unite for victory!”

Said Choudhary, “Always ready to protect national and constitutional values. We expect all the workers of our alliance to move forward together for the development and prosperity of our region!”

RLD national general secretary Anupam Mishra on Friday told The Indian Express, “The SP has agreed to give us seven seats. We cannot release the details as to which seven seats have been decided for the RLD. That will become clear in the coming days.”

Sources in the RLD said the seven seats could include Mathura, Baghpat, Fatehpur Sikri, Bijnor, and some other seats in western UP. Former SP MLC and national spokesperson Udaiveer, however, said that the specifics should not be divulged yet “due to strategic reasons”.

After the meeting between the SP and the Congress on Wednesday, SP national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told the media, “Aadhaa raasta teh kar liya, aur baaki aadhaa bhi the kar lenge (we have covered half the distance and will cover the rest).”

Asked about the seat-sharing agreement between the SP and RLD being announced amid talks with the Congress, RLD national spokesperson Anil Dubey said, “The talks between the SP and Congress are ongoing. Since the SP is the biggest party in UP, it will give seats to its allies. I think an agreement between the Congress and the SP will be reached soon.”

Senior Congress leaders told The Indian Express that the party had submitted a list of 28 seats to the SP and said it was “hopeful to get around 25 seats”. The party won 21 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and has based its number on the results.

Meanwhile, SP leaders feel that the Congress “is overplaying its hand” by asking for 28 seats. “The Congress could win just two seats in the 2022 state polls. Twenty-eight seats out of 80 is a lot. They will have to compromise for the sake of the larger INDIA alliance,” said an SP leader.

The RLD and SP have been allies in UP since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The RLD contested three seats then as part of the mahagatbandhan with the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The RLD lost all three seats while the SP won five seats out of the 37 it contested. The BSP managed to win 10 seats out of the 38 it contested.

By the time of the Assembly polls in 2022, the BSP and the SP were not in alliance by then. The SP won 111 of the 347 constituencies it contested while the RLD won nine seats of the 33 where it was in the fray. The Congress, meanwhile, recorded its worst performance in the state, winning only two of the 403 seats it contested. It did not ally with any party.

The Congress, SP and RLD have not been on the best of terms in the recent past and the seat-sharing talks were expected to run into some trouble. The SP openly expressed unhappiness during the seat-sharing process at the time of the Madhya Pradesh elections, when it accused the Congress of “cheating”. The RLD was also left unhappy when the Congress gave it just one seat in the Rajasthan Assembly polls last year.