The second round of talks between the two parties ended on Monday with both deciding to meet again next week to sort out the contentious seats —Rampur, Moradabad, Farrukhabad, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur Sikri, Gonda, Dumariyaganj, Salempur and Kushinagar. Except Dumariyaganj, held by the BSP, all other seats are held by the SP. While the SP was learnt to be inclined to accommodate the Congress’ claims on Fatehpur Sikri (for Raj Babbar) and Dumariyaganj (for Jagdambika Pal), it rejected any negotiation on other seats.

The Congress, on the other hand, has some senior leaders seeking their candidature—Begum Noor Bano from either Rampur or Moradabad, Salman Khursheed from Farrukhabad, Ratna Singh from Pratapgarh, R P N Singh from Kushinagar, Bhola Pandey from Salempur, and rebel SP leader Beni Prasad Verma from Gonda. During Monday’s meeting the Congress was represented by Rahul Gandhi, Digvijay Singh and Rita Bahuguna Joshi and the SP by Amar Singh and Ram Gopal Yadav. Digvijay Singh said only 10 per cent seats remained to be decided.

The Congress’ claims put a big question mark on the SP-devised formula according to which the SP claims unequivocal rights on 56 seats, including the 39 that it had won and 17 on which it had come second. Over and above that the SP claimed at least a dozen more seats on the winnability criteria.