Ahead of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly elections, Samajwadi Party (SP) President Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday, 12 January, chaired a meeting with the leaders of the party's allies in Lucknow.
"With the top leadership of all the allies of SP, today talks of development and future of Uttar Pradesh took place," Yadav tweeted after the meeting.
A photo of the meeting showed SP leader Krishna Patel sitting at the head of the table, while Yadav sitting next to her.
After the meeting, the SP announced that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader KK Sharma will contest Bulandshahr’s Anupshar constituency as the joint candidate of SP-NCP.
"We have pledged to make Akhilesh Yadav the next CM of Uttar Pradesh. The list of candidates of the SP-led alliance will be released in a phased manner. My party will not contest in the first and second phases," Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar was quoted as saying by news agency ANI after the meeting.
Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, which will take place in seven phases beginning 10 February, will see parties contesting for 403 Assembly constituencies.
Meanwhile, the ruling BJP in UP is witnessing an exodus of its leaders ahead of the key polls, with two ministers and four MLAs submitting their resignations over the past two days.
Former UP Ministers Dara Singh Chauhan and Swami Prasad Maurya are expected to join the SP in the coming days.
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