The Samajwadi Party has conceded two seats to Congress in the Uttar Pradesh assembly bypolls. The party has given Khair assembly seat in Aligarh and the Ghaziabad Sadar seat, which was won by the BJP in the 2022 assembly polls, to the grand old party.

However, Congress leaders in the state were not content with the two seats against the five demanded by them.

A senior SP leader said here on Friday that the Congress leadership has been informed about the decision and the ball is now in the court of the alliance partner.

The SP has already announced candidates for six of the nine seats going to polls on November 13.

Earlier, the Akhilesh party was not too keen to accommodate Congress as the ally didn’t offer any seat to its INDIA bloc ally in the Haryana Assembly elections. Sources said the talks between Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi during the swearing-in ceremony of Omar Abdullah in Srinagar broke the ice and thereafter the SP decided to offer two seats to Congress.

On October 9, the SP announced the candidates for six constituencies for the bypolls. They include Tej Pratap from the Karhal seat, Naseem Solanki, wife of former MLA Irfan Solanki, from the Sisamau assembly seat, Ajit Prasad from Milkipur, Mustafa Siddiqui from Phulpur, Shobhawati Verma from Katehari and Dr. Jyoti Bind from the Majhwan seat.

Yesterday, it announced the name of Sumbul Rana, daughter of ex-MP Munkad Ali, as the SP candidate from the Meerapur seat in Muzaffarnagar. Now, only a candidate from the Kundarki seat is left to be announced by the SP.

On the other hand, the BJP is yet to announce its candidates for eight seats while the RLD about to field its candidate for a lone seat.

While the BSP has decided to contest nine seats, it has yet to announce its candidates.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the Election Commission issued notification for the by-elections for the nine assembly seats in the state. The bypolls of Milkipur in Ayodhya will be held later as a petition is pending over the seat in the high court.

The by-elections are to be held in Karhal (Mainpuri), Sisamau (Kanpur), Katehari (Ambedkarnagar), Kundarki (Moradabad), Khair (Aligarh), Ghaziabad, Phulpur (Prayagraj), Majhwa (Mirzapur) and Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar) assembly segments.

Except for the Sisamau seat, all other eight by-elections will be held as the members were elected to the Lok Sabha.

The nomination process has started and the last date for the nominations is October 25. Scrutiny of the nominations will be done on October 28 and the last date for the withdrawal of the nominations is October 30. Polling will be held on November 13.

However, the BJP and its NDA ally, the RLD, appealed to the EC to defer the November 13 polls and extend it to November 20 in view of the Kartik Purnima festival on November 15.