New Delhi: The Congress and Rashtriya Lok Dal have agreed to join hands for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
RLD chief Ajit Singh is scheduled to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on Saturday evening to finalise the tie-up.
Reports say that Singh may get a ministerial berth.
The talk in political circles is that RLD led by Ajit Singh could be given 48 seats in his stronghold of Western UP and five seats in the rest of the state.
The alliance talks between the two parties has been on for quite sometime and Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh had earlier this week expressed the hope that the alliance would be stuck soon.
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and Ajit Singh have held meetings to discuss the seat-sharing, according to sources.
If this alliance materialises, it would be a significant move in the elections to the 403-member UP Assembly.
Congress had come fourth with 21 seats in the last Assembly elections in UP in 2007.
The BJP, which has 98 MLAs in the present Assembly, has already announced it would not go for any pre or post-poll alliance in the state.
Some recent poll surveys have put Samajwadi Party and BSP among the front-runners while BJP stands at the third place but way behind these two parties.
The scenario may change if the Congress-RLD alliance happens as the two parties can bank on Jat, Muslim and upper caste votes.
Ajit Singh had earlier said that Congress and RLD should join hands as this was the only way to defeat Mayawati-led BSP.
(With additional information from PTI)
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