NEW DELHI: In the third round of
seat-sharing talks
between Congress's national alliance committee and Samajwadi Party Wednesday,
Congress
is learnt to have expressed keenness to contest 20 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, with
SP
leaders conveying to them that they are unlikely to part with any more than 20 seats for all its
allies
in UP - Congress, Rashtriya Lok Dal and Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) - put together.
Sources said SP leaders told NAC members that the party is well prepared to contest 78 of 80 Lok Sabha seats, a signal that while Rae Bareli and Amethi, the two constituencies it offered Congress in 2019, continue to remain available, Congress's demand for a larger share is likely to be subdued by its electoral performance, which left it reduced to one Lok Sabha seat - Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli - in UP.
NAC member Salman Khurshid said leaders looked into "all possibilities, probabilities and winnabilities" and are hopeful a seat-sharing formula is worked out before Rahul Gandhi's Yatra reaches UP.
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