Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said he will not contest any seat in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections scheduled early next year, PTI reported.

Yadav, who is an MP from the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat, has never contested an Assembly election. In 2012, when he became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, he had taken oath as a member of the state’s Legislative Council.

Uttar Pradesh is one of the six states that have bicameral legislatures.

On Monday, Yadav also said that his party had finalised an alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal for the next year’s state elections. Seat sharing between the two parties is yet to be decided, Yadav said, according to PTI.

He added that the Samajwadi Party was also open to forming an alliance with his uncle Shivpal Yadav’s outfit Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia.

“He [Shivpal Yadav] and his party members will be given due honour,” Akhilesh Yadav said.

Shivpal Yadav had launched the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia in 2018 after a fallout with Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Samajwadi Party has already decided to form an alliance with Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party.

Rajbhar’s party had won four seats in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections as an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party. However the party left the alliance following differences with the BJP over seat allocation in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.