The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday unilaterally announced candidates for six of the 10 Uttar Pradesh Assembly seats where bypolls are due later this year in an apparent snub to ally Congress over its poor show in the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir elections.

Sources in the SP, a constituent of the Congress-led INDIA bloc, said the list was ready a fortnight ago but the party was waiting for the twin Assembly election results.

The SP sources said the party would announce two more candidates soon, leaving two seats for the Congress.

The list of candidates has reinforced the SP’s family-first policy. Tej Pratap Singh, nephew of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, will contest from Karhal in Mainpuri district which fell vacant following Akhilesh’s resignation after being elected as an MP from Kannauj.

Tej Pratap, who is also the son-in-law of RJD leader Lalu Prasad, was elected as an MP from Mainpuri in the 2014 by-election.

Akhilesh has chosen Ajit Prasad, son of Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad, from Milkipur. Awadhesh was the Milkipur MLA before resigning in June following his election as an MP.

Naseem Solanki, the wife of jailed and disqualified SP MLA from Sishamau Irfan Solanki, will contest the vacant seat in Kanpur district.

Jyoti Bind has been fielded from Majhwan. Jyoti, a doctor, is the daughter of Ramesh Bind who was elected BJP MP from Bhadohi in 2019 but the party denied him a ticket in 2024. The SP inducted Ramesh this year and fielded him from Mirzapur but he lost.

Shobhawati Verma, whom the SP has fielded from Katehari in Ambedkar Nagar district, is the wife of Lalaji Verma who resigned after his election as an MP from Ambedkar Nagar.

Former MLA of Pratappur in Bhadohi district, Mustafa Siddiqui, is the SP nominee from Phulpur. The SP’s decision to field a candidate from this seat is being seen as an impediment to its electoral alliance with the Congress. The parties had contested the last parliamentary elections together in Uttar Pradesh and won 37 and six seats, respectively, out of 80.

Congress sources said the party wanted to contest from Phulpur. “The SP didn’t consult us before announcing its candidates. They had done the same during the Lok Sabha elections and left 17 seats for us. There were only five seats of our choice at that time but we won six in the state. Let us see what our leader Rahul Gandhi decides this time,” said a Congress leader on the condition of anonymity.

The SP has not announced nominees for Ghaziabad, Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Khair (Aligarh) and Kundarki (Moradabad).

“We definitely want Khair and Ghaziabad but we are not sure how our central leadership is viewing the announcement of candidates by the SP,” said the Congress source.

Reacting to the SP list, state Congress chief Ajay Rai said: “We already have an alliance with the SP. We will discuss our issues and resolve them before polling day.”