NEW DELHI: What does the size of one’s heart have to do with political alliances? Perhaps quite a lot when the allies are the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, and at stake is the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly election.The ‘UP ke ladke’ delivered in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The partnership between Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi helped the INDIA bloc win 43 of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 seats, handing the BJP its biggest electoral setback in the state in a decade.Now, as the two parties prepare for seat-sharing negotiations for next year’s assembly election, leaders on both sides want the other to show a “big heart” and be more accommodating.
The ‘UP ke ladke’ proved to be a winning combination in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Akhilesh made the first appeal. At the INDIA bloc’s crisis meeting on June 9, held after Mamata Banerjee’s shock defeat in West Bengal, the SP chief had a word of advice for the Congress: “Show a large heart and be accommodative.”The message was clear: the Congress should avoid competing with regional allies and recognise their dominance in states where they remain the principal opposition force.With the Congress facing criticism from allies over its aggressive approach during elections, Rahul responded with an emphatic assurance: “I will bear every single humiliation that I have to bear to knit this group together and make it succeed. What is the main issue here? I have no interest in fighting you. I would have to be a madman to suddenly get up and say I am going to fight you because you are our allies, you are our friends, you are the people we love.”Rahul’s conciliatory message, however, has not stopped Congress leaders in Uttar Pradesh from staking an ambitious claim. They have turned the “big heart” argument around, asking the SP to offer the Congress equal status, a respectable deal and, according to some leaders, 50:50 parity.Saharanpur MP Imran Masood has argued that the SP benefited more from the alliance in 2024.
Saharanpur MP Imran Masood has claimed that the SP gained more than the Congress from their alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Congress co-incharge for Uttar Pradesh Rajesh Tiwari made a similar argument: “The SP is keen to head the next government in the state. Hence, it should have a big heart.”The pitch grew louder on July 2 when newly appointed Uttar Pradesh Congress in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam said the party would enter the assembly election on the principles of “equality and respect”.These remarks appear far removed from Rahul’s conciliatory intervention at the INDIA bloc meeting in June. But the posturing by Congress leaders is hardly surprising. Seat-sharing has repeatedly emerged as a point of friction between the party and its regional allies.The same tension has surfaced in several states where the Congress has attempted to balance its national ambitions with the political dominance of regional partners.
Bihar
In Bihar, the Congress and the RJD failed to finalise a seat-sharing agreement even after nominations opened for the first phase of the assembly elections. The lack of coordination was evident when Tejashwi Yadav filed his nomination papers without any senior Congress leader by his side.The two parties eventually reached an agreement, but the delay had already exposed divisions within the Mahagathbandhan and disrupted its preparations. Little wonder, their Mahagathbandhan was decimated by the BJP and its allies.
Haryana
In Haryana, several rounds of negotiations between the Congress and Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP failed to produce a seat-sharing agreement. The two parties could not agree on the number and choice of constituencies, while the bitterness of their rivalry in Delhi made a compromise even more difficult.They eventually contested separately, splitting the opposition space in several constituencies. The Congress fell short of dislodging the BJP, which returned to power for a third consecutive term.
Madhya Pradesh
But when it comes to seat sharing with Samajwadi Party, there is already a history of bitterness between the two allies. There was an open war of words between Akhilesh Yadav and the then CM face of Congress Kamal Nath, who refused to cede any ground to the Samajwadi Party in the state. This was immediately after the opposition had joined hands at the national level under the INDIA bloc banner to fight the BJP. Despite that the Congress high command remained a mute spectator as Kamal Nath refused to budge. Kamal Nath, who was confident of victory then, announced that the INDIA bloc was only for national elections. The bitterness complicated negotiations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, before an intervention by senior leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, helped rescue the partnership.
What’s happening now?
Now, as the assembly elections approach, both sides have begun posturing to keep up the pressure. Congress leaders have been more vocal, citing the party’s national status, as they often do when dealing with regional allies.In fact, newly appointed Congress in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam, who is supposed to oversee the party’s campaign in UP, has gone on to claim that the SP’s success in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was because the Congress was projected as the senior partner.
Gautam credited INDIA bloc’s 2024 gains to Congress’s leadership, arguing that only Rahul Gandhi had national stature to take on BJP.
The Congress leader has also claimed that if the party is not given its due respect within the alliance, it would amount to giving the BJP a “walkover”.Interestingly, both parties are citing past results to justify their claims. The Congress points to the Samajwadi Party’s performance in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections to argue that its spectacular showing in 2024 was the result of its alliance with the grand old party.The SP won five seats in 2014 when it contested alone and five in 2019 when it was allied with Mayawati’s BSP. However, when the SP and Congress contested together in 2024, the SP’s tally rose to 37. Congress leaders claim that this sharp increase was due to the influence of the grand old party.Now, let us analyse the Congress’s performance in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.The Congress has been out of power in UP since 1989. Over the last four decades, its presence in the state assembly has dwindled continuously, and the party has largely been confined to the Gandhi family bastions of Rae Bareli and Amethi. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won only two seats in 2014 and one in 2019, before increasing its tally to six in 2024.The Congress and SP contested the 2017 assembly elections in alliance but were decimated by the BJP. While the SP won 47 seats, the Congress managed only seven.In the 2022 elections, the Congress went solo. Led by AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party contested 399 seats, with women accounting for 40% of its candidates. Despite this, the party performed poorly and its vote share fell to 2.33%.
How the SP and Congress fared when they fought separately
The Congress managed to win only two seats—Aradhana Mishra ‘Mona’ from Rampur Khas in Pratapgarh district and Virendra Chaudhary from Pharenda in Maharajganj district. It marked the party’s worst-ever assembly election performance in Uttar Pradesh.So, will the ‘UP ke do ladke’ unite again in 2027, as they did in 2024, to stun the BJP-led NDA in Uttar Pradesh? There has been considerable bonhomie on display between Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav. The two used their birthdays, 12 days apart, to reinforce their shared commitment to fighting the BJP. But to ensure that this bonhomie translates into electoral gains for both parties, they will have to rein in their leaders, especially those in the Congress.When the Congress surprised everyone with a sit-in protest outside Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence in the national capital over the NEET issue, Akhilesh was by Rahul Gandhi’s side. The two leaders have also held a closed-door meeting in Parliament, along with Priyanka Gandhi, perhaps to work out the contours of a practical seat-sharing formula acceptable to both parties.The stakes are higher for the SP, which is in contention to form the next government in UP and knows that support from its allies could be crucial to achieving that objective. The Congress, with just two seats in the assembly, has little to lose in the state. However, the grand old party would do well to realise that another botched alliance experiment could isolate it further within the INDIA bloc, which it leads.The BJP in Uttar Pradesh is going through a challenging phase amid recent controversies. But chief minister Yogi Adityanath is leading the fight himself and has been quick to capitalise on the reported differences between the two allies. While Congress leaders may be making strong remarks to build pressure on Akhilesh, they should realise that this ploy carries the risk of creating a perception among voters that the two allies are fighting. And if the Congress and SP lose this perception battle, winning the election could become difficult. Bihar has already shown how damaging such an impression can be.The SP and Congress have already shown that they can hurt the BJP when they fight together. The challenge in 2027 will be to ensure that the fight over seats does not begin before the fight for Uttar Pradesh. Whether they can set aside competing ambitions and agree on who must show the ‘bigger heart’ will determine if the ‘UP ke ladke’ can deliver again.
