“The SP-Congress alliance will certainly take place and it would be clinched very soon. From our side there is no problem and we are trying our best (to finalise it). We

have not announced candidates for the seats claimed by the Congress,” he told reporters after a meeting with Kalyan Singh.

“We have almost finished declaring our candidates,” Mulayam said, announcing the candidature of Mitrasen Yadav, who crossed over from the BSP, from Faizabad. With this, the number of SP candidates has gone up to 62 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP.

Of the remaining 18 seats, the SP is likely to take one more, Ghosi, from whereit plans to field a Muslim candidate. On his meeting with Kalyan, he said, “Kalyan is my friend and I am not supposed to divulge what I discussed with my friend.”