The SP is yet to formalise its alliance with the Congress and the talks were still on. The Congress has been insisting on 25 seats, including friendly fights in some constituencies, but the SP has shot down the idea.

On Tuesday, the SP changed its candidate from Sitapur, while retaining its sitting MPs from Pratapgarh and Farrukhabad constituencies — Akshay Pratap Singh and Chandra Bhushan Singh respectively.

The Samajwadi Party had earlier announced Ranjana Bajpai as its candidate from Sitapur, who has now been replaced by Mahendra Verma.

Meanwhile, the party lashed out at the Mayawati government for lodging six criminal cases against its Gyanpur MLA Vijay Mishra in a single day. During the recent by-poll to the Bhadoi Assembly seat, Mishra and his family members were booked for obtaining arms licence by allegedly furnishing fake address.

SP spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary said Mishra played a key role in the victory of his party candidate from Bhadoi, which he wrested from the BSP candidate by a margin of over 5,000 votes.

Cong to make announcement today: Digvijay
New Delhi: Seeking to pressurise Samajwadi Party over Lok Sabha poll seat-sharing exercise in Uttar Pradesh, Congress said it would make an announcement on the issue on Wednesday but refused to spell out details.

“There will be some announcement from Congress party about Uttar Pradesh tomorrow,” AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh told mediapersons on Tuesday.

He, however, declined to say if the party was going ahead with the exercise or has been disheartened by Samajwadi Party announcing its candidates for 62 of the 80 seats, leaving Congress with ‘take-it-or-leave it’ situation.

Singh’s remarks came close on the heels of SP leaving little elbow room for Congress in its seat-sharing talks and by declaring that it was against friendly fights, an issue being pressed by Congress.