Samajwadi Party MP from Pratapgarh, Shiv Pal Singh Patel, has targeted the INDIA bloc ally, Congress, claiming that Rahul Gandhi contested from Raebareli instead of Amethi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections because he was “so scared”.
Patel says Congress won because of SP
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Samajwadi Party won 37 seats in Uttar Pradesh — including the prestigious Faizabad parliamentary constituency, of which the temple town of Ayodhya is an integral part — while its ally Congress won six seats. The BJP’s tally was limited to 33 seats, and the NDA’s to 36. Currently, in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the Congress has two MLAs, while the Samajwadi Party has 101 MLAs.
Because of that persuasion,” Patel said, gandhi only managed to win it. Because of the INDIA bloc that he (Patel) has become an MP, it is. “It was our national president who reassured and persuaded him, asking him to contest and warning that if he didn’t, he (Akhilesh) would field his own candidate. Only then did Gandhi agree to contest. He should know his limits and avoid making statements like these.
The MP said that it was SP chief Akhilesh Yadav who persuaded the now-leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha to contest the election. Otherwise, he was extremely reluctant to run for that traditional seat, the one said to belong to the Nehru family. Shiv Pal Singh Patel said the Samajwadi Party gave full support to the Congress, claiming that all SP votes on the seats allotted to the Congress went to the grand old party. Reacting to Patel’s comments, Uttar Pradesh Congress spokesperson Anshu Awasthi told PTI, “The Samajwadi Party must work to rein in leaders who make such statements.
Akhilesh Yadav issued a gag order to SP leaders on Saturday, directing them to keep their opinions on seat-sharing negotiations and the Congress strictly within internal party channels.
