Akhilesh Yadav, the chief of the Samajwadi Party (SP), stated on Thursday that the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the opposition, was only at the national level. This came a few days after he had asked the Congress to clarify if the alliance also existed at the state level.

“We now know that the alliance only exists in Delhi at the [national] level. Alright, let’s discuss Delhi when the moment is right. Weeks before five states are scheduled to hold elections next month, he told reporters, “We went ahead and began declaring candidates for those [Madhya Pradesh] elections now that we have accepted that the alliance does not apply to state elections.”

He said that SP leaders would not have gone to Congress with a list for seat sharing if he had known there would be no INDIA alliance at the state level.

Attending a Sitapur-related SP event on Tuesday, Yadav declared that his party would run for all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the national elections of 2024.

For the Madhya Pradesh elections, the SP has selected 31 candidates. The party’s Madhya Pradesh poll chief, Vyasji Gond, declared that they will make an effort to field candidates for each of the 230 seats.

The goal of the SP’s national expansion has been to reach beyond Uttar Pradesh. It has been a regional party ever since it was founded in 1992. When the SP won seven of the 161 seats it ran for in Madhya Pradesh in 2003, it had its greatest success outside of Uttar Pradesh. It ran for 52 seats in the 2018 assembly elections and won one. Since then, the lone MP has switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in power.

As the Congress lacks a base of support in Madhya Pradesh, Ajay Rai, the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress, asked the SP on Tuesday to fully support the Congress. It’s thought that the SP requested 12 seats.

In September, INDIA constituents decided to run together in the 2024 elections “as far as possible” and said that state seat-sharing agreements will be started right away and completed as soon as possible in a “collaborative spirit of give-and-take.”

The election dates for Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Mizoram are November 7–30, with results announced on December 3. Before the elections of 2024, this will be the final significant election. In addition, this is the first round of assembly votes since the formation of the INDIA alliance by 26 opposition parties in July to contest the BJP.