Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said that his party will fight the upcoming bye-elections in Uttar Pradesh in an alliance with the Congress, The Hindu reported.

The Opposition INDIA bloc is intact in the state, he added.

The MP from Kannauj made the statement a day after the Samajwadi Party declared candidates for six bye-poll seats in the state.

Bye-elections will be held in 10 Assembly constituencies. Nine of these seats fell vacant after their MLAs were elected as MPs in the recent Lok Sabha elections. In the Sisamau constituency, the bye-poll was necessitated as the sitting MLA Irfan Solanki was disqualified after being convicted in an arson case.

The Election Commission is yet to announce the bye-poll schedule.

On Wednesday, the Samajwadi Party listed Tej Pratap Singh Yadav as its candidate from the Karhal constituency, Shobhawati Verma from Katehri, Naseem Solanki from Sisamau, Ajeet Prasad from Milkipur, Mustafa Siddiqui from Phulpur and Jyoti Bind from Majhwa.

Following the announcement, Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Avinash Pande claimed that his party was not informed by its ally about the decision, The Hindu reported. No discussions were held with the coordination committee of the INDIA bloc, he added.

“As far as the announcement of seats and contesting elections is concerned, whatever decision the coordination committee of INDIA alliance takes, it will be accepted by the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee,” Pande was quoted as saying.

Yadav’s remarks on Thursday came two days after the Congress lost the Haryana Assembly elections.

The Bharatiya Janata Party clinched 48 seats in the 90-member Assembly. This was an increase from the 40 seats the Hindutva party had won in the 2019 polls. The Congress won 37 seats.

During the Lok Sabha elections, however, the Samajwadi Party and Congress alliance won 43 of the 80 seats in the state. While the Samajwadi Party emerged as the single-largest party in Uttar Pradesh with 37 seats, the Congress won six seats.

The BJP won in 33 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, down from the 62 parliamentary seats it had won there in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The Hindutva party’s vote share in Uttar Pradesh also fell to 41.3% from the all-time high of 49.9% in 2019.