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Ahead of the UP elections 2027, Congress is looking to replicate the 2024 Lok Sabha success while avoiding the mistakes of its 2017 alliance with SP.
Akhilesh Yadav (left) and Rahul Gandhi. (PTI File)
The Congress wants seat-sharing negotiations with the Samajwadi Party (SP) for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections to begin early, but its pitch is not simply for a larger share of the state’s 403 constituencies.
Instead, the party wants the talks to revolve around “winnable” or “quality” seats — constituencies where its organisational presence, candidate strength and caste equations, combined with the SP’s support base, could give the alliance a stronger chance of victory.
The approach is significant for a Congress that has only a marginal presence in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly but saw its fortunes improve sharply when it fought the 2024 Lok Sabha election in alliance with the SP.
It also comes as both parties conduct their own surveys across all 403 Assembly seats, potentially laying the groundwork for eventual negotiations over who should contest where.
Congress Looks Beyond The Seat-Sharing Numbers
Congress leaders are arguing against a seat-sharing formula based primarily on the number of constituencies allotted to each alliance partner.
The party instead wants winnability to determine its claims, even if that means focusing on a smaller set of constituencies where it sees a realistic path to victory.
“We are clear about one thing. We want our CM in place but that is up to the SP. We want to increase our presence in the state. For that, it is important to contest ‘quality’ seats,” a Congress leader told The Indian Express.
The calculation also challenges the idea that a constituency should automatically remain with one party because it has traditionally contested from there.
“If a party has been losing a seat three times, giving that seat to it does not add to the alliance. If the other party’s candidate can bring its vote plus the alliance partner’s vote together, then that becomes a stronger proposition,” a Congress MP told the newspaper.
For the Congress, the objective is two-fold: improve its representation in the Assembly while rebuilding an organisational base that has weakened considerably in Uttar Pradesh.
403-Seat Surveys Could Shape Congress-SP Bargain
Both the Congress and SP are separately assessing all 403 constituencies ahead of the election.
The surveys are expected to look at previous electoral performance, caste combinations, organisational strength, candidate potential and whether the support bases of the two parties can be transferred effectively to each other.
“In an earlier meeting, it was decided that we should prepare for all 403 seats and strengthen the organisation. But as the elections approach, we need to identify the seats where caste combinations and the support of the SP can turn them into winnable seats for the Congress,” a Congress MP told The Indian Express.
Another Congress MP said both sides were carrying out their own exercises before the leadership eventually takes a decision. “The SP is conducting its own survey, so is Congress, to come to a common ground. The final call will be taken by the party leadership,” the MP said.
SP Says It Has ‘Bigger Stake’ In UP
Any eventual agreement will also have to account for the difference in the two parties’ strength in Uttar Pradesh.
While the Congress is seeking to expand its Assembly presence, the SP remains the larger partner in the state. A senior SP leader told The Indian Express that alliance decisions would be taken by the top leadership and said the party could not comment on the Congress’s “internal affairs”.
“We have a bigger stake than the Congress in the 2027 Assembly polls. The seat-sharing would be on the basis of the winability of the candidates,” the SP leader said.
Congress, meanwhile, has signalled how it wants to approach that relationship. Rajendra Pal Gautam, recently appointed AICC in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, had said the party would contest the Assembly election with “equality and respect”, according to IANS.
Why Congress Does Not Want A Last-Minute Deal
Behind the push to start negotiations early is the Congress’s experience of its previous Assembly alliance with the SP.
The two parties fought the 2017 Uttar Pradesh election together, but the partnership failed to produce the expected result. The SP won 47 seats and the Congress seven, while the BJP swept the election with 312 seats in the 403-member Assembly.
Congress leaders now point to late negotiations and inadequate constituency-level coordination as factors that hurt the alliance. There were also more than 20 “friendly fights” between the alliance partners.
“Because of late negotiations and lack of adequate coordination at the constituency level, the alliance could not be reflected on the ground (in the previous Assembly polls),” a Congress leader who attended a recent meeting of Uttar Pradesh MPs with Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra told The Indian Express.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the ongoing Parliament session and, according to sources cited by the newspaper, came after SP chief Akhilesh Yadav met Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka in Delhi.
“An alliance does not get settled at the last moment. We have to decide early if we are going together and it is crucial considering the past experiences,” a senior Congress MP said.
The two parties subsequently contested the 2022 Assembly election separately, when the Congress was reduced to just two seats.
2024 Gives Congress A Different Playbook
If 2017 provides the warning for the Congress, the 2024 Lok Sabha election provides the model it wants to build on.
The SP and Congress returned to an alliance for the parliamentary election. The SP contested 62 of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha constituencies and the Congress 17.
The arrangement delivered 37 seats for the SP and six for the Congress, taking their combined tally to 43. The BJP, which had won 62 seats in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, was reduced to 33.
For the Congress, the outcome strengthened the argument that the number of seats it contests may matter less than whether it gets constituencies where the alliance’s combined electoral strength can be converted into victories.
That is the principle it now wants to carry into the much larger 403-seat Assembly contest.
BJP Targets Congress Over Dependence On SP
The BJP has sought to turn that dependence on alliance arithmetic into an attack on the Congress.
BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on Monday claimed the Congress lacked an independent political standing in Uttar Pradesh and could benefit only by fighting alongside the SP.
“They have no standing of their own. They can win only a few seats by riding on the Samajwadi Party’s shoulders. And Congress has no standing of its own in Uttar Pradesh. Now, if they contest as part of an alliance, they may benefit somewhat,” Singh told IANS.
SP MP Ram Gopal Yadav declined to engage with Singh’s remarks. “What can we comment on that? I have nothing to say,” he told IANS.
About the Author
Karishma Jain, Chief Sub Editor at News18.com, writes and edits opinion pieces on a variety of subjects, including Indian politics and policy, culture and the arts, technology and social change. Follo…Read More
August 10, 2026, 13:54 IST
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