Lucknow, Jul 9 (IANS): The first signs of strain in the Samajwadi Party - Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance in Uttar Pradesh have started showing up.

RLD state President Ramashish Rai said that his party would claim 12 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

"We have sizeable presence on these 12 seats and would like to contest them. We gave up our seats in the last Assembly elections and as a result, we lost our state recognition by the Election Commission," he said.

He confessed that contesting the polls in alliance with SP made RLD pay a heavy price.

"We are preparing on all 12 seats so that we can get back our recognition," he added.

He said that the party's vote base has expanded and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhry was working hard to regain lost ground.

The RLD, according to sources, is also unhappy with the anti-Congress posture of the Samajwadi Party.

A senior party functionary said, "A combined opposition alliance would be meaningless if the Congress is not included. It is one of the biggest parties with a pan-India presence and we cannot deny it."

Interestingly, there has been no meeting between SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary in recent months which is an indication of the growing distance between the two leaders.