SP, Cong to support BSP candidate in RS elections

LUCKNOW : Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday declared his party’s support for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate BR Ambedkar, a former MLA, in the Rajya Sabha election scheduled on March 23. The Congress, too, is set to support Ambedkar.

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday declared his party’s support for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate BR Ambedkar, a former MLA, in the Rajya Sabha election scheduled on March 23.

“The SP will fully back the BSP candidate in the Rajya Sabha election,” he said at a press conference here.

He said his party will do everything to weaken ‘communal forces’ in the country.

Asked if the SP-BSP understanding for the Lok Sabha by-polls will continue in the 2019 general election, he hinted the future of the alliance might depend on the outcome of the by-elections.

“Let the by-polls result come,” he said.

About the possibility of an alliance with the Congress in future, he said he had a good rapport with the party and its leaders.

“The need of the hour is for all the like-minded parties to come together,” he said.

Referring to chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s statement that he was a Hindu and he did not celebrate Eid, Akhilesh said, “Such a statement on the floor of the assembly amounted to a breach of the oath that he (Adityanath) took as the CM.”

‘I AM A PROGRESSIVE BACKWARD’

Yadav said prior to 2017, he did not consider himself to be someone belonging to a backward caste. But the BJP, he said, reminded him that he was a backward. “Yes, I am a backward but I am progressive backward who made the country’s best expressway, who distributed laptops to 18 lakh students and who brought metro to the state capital,” he said.