‘Strategy for 2019 polls a secret’

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday refused to reveal his strategy for 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the nature of his party’s alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

While he kept his cards close to his chest, Akhilesh made it clear that Congress will also be a part of the alliance. He was speaking at an event organised by a news channel. “I have learnt from the BJP that no strategy should be revealed.

It will not be prudent to reveal the strategy and likely nature of alliance with the BSP,” Akhilesh said when asked about his strategy for 2019 to confront the BJP following SP’s impressive victories in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls.

Attacking chief minister Yogi Adityanath for his recent statement that he was Hindu and did not celebrate Eid, the former CM said: “Before assuming office of CM he (Yogi Adityanath) took oath of office and should not have given such a statement.”

He said the SP’s victory in the recent bypolls in U.P. was not an overnight result. “We had started preparing long back for the bypolls,” he said.

Akhilesh also attacked the BJP government at the Centre. “The BJP government at the Centre has presented five budgets.

But they have not fulfilled any of the promises they had made with electorate.” He also questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Smart City project. “No one knows what the Smart City project is and what will happen under this project.”

He advised BJP leaders to take lesson from defeat in Gorakhpur and Phoolpur bye-elections. He also poked fun at his successor Adityanath’s visit to Noida to inaugurate the Noida-Delhi Metro line last year.