Big blow to 'INDIA': RLD's Jayant Chaudhary may join NDA, offered 4 Lok Sabha seats in UP

After Bihar, the INDIA alliance may suffer another jolt in Uttar Pradesh as Jayant Chaudhary's Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA. Sources told India Today that the BJP has offered four Lok Sabha seats - Kairana, Baghpat, Mathura, and Amroha - to RLD in Uttar Pradesh.

Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, which is part of the INDIA alliance, wanted its candidates to contest elections from Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, and Bijnor Lok Sabha seats on the RLD symbol - a move that may have upset Jayant Chaudhary.

The RLD dominates in some seats in Western Uttar Pradesh. In the 2022 assembly polls, the RLD had partnered with the Samajwadi Party (SP). It contested on 33 seats and won 9. However, in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the party could not win any of the three seats it contested.

The Congress and the SP are currently engaged in discussions to decide on the seat share in UP, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats. The SP has already announced candidates for 16 seats and offered 11 seats to Congress, which is seeking to contest 25 seats.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had won 1 seat while the SP, which was in alliance with Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, bagged five. This time, the SP wants to contest 65 of 80 seats.