AKHILESH SAYS SPBSP ALLIANCE INTACT DESPITE RS POLL HITCH
Samajwadi Party (SP) president and former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav has said the alliance between his party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was intact despite the BJP upstaging them in the recently held Rajya Sabha poll.
The newfound friendship between the two rivals seems to have hit a rough patch after BSP’s Bhim Rao Ambedkar last week lost the Rajya Sabha poll to BJP’s Anil Agrawal despite the backing of SP and the Congress.
“I will take the benefit of age and experience and show a large heart when the time comes,” Yadav said on Tuesday during a discussion on the state budget in the Vidhan Parishad.
His didn’t name Mayawati but the remarks were seen as a response to the BSP leader’s statement that the 44-year-old lacked political experience. “Had Akhilesh Yadav been mature enough, he would have focused on the victory of the BSP candidate more than his own candidate,” she said at a press conference after the Rajya Sabha loss.
The defeat of Ambedkar was a setback especially after the two parties had managed to winning the prestigious Gorakhpur and Phulpur assembly bypolls.
The BJP was upset over the SP-BSP joining hands and was trying to drive a wedge between the two partners but the alliance was going to stay, Yadav said. The Phulpur and Gorakhpur outcomes reflected the general mood in the country, he said.
While calling for a grand alliance to take on the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Mayawati on Monday asked party cadres to focus on the national election instead of bypolls, which virtually rules out a repeat of the SP-BSP tie-up in near future.
Speaking in the House, Akhilesh took on the state government over loan waiver, police encounters and other issues.
He was also dismissive of the recent investors’ meet, saying it was unlikely that the agreements that were signed would convert into real investment.
“But I am happy that during the investors’ summit the Lucknow-Agra expressway that the SP government made was showcased as the country’s biggest road,” he said. HTC
LUCKNOW: AKHILESH SAYS BJP TRYING TO DRIVE A WEDGE BETWEEN SPBSP BUT ALLIANCE WAS GOING TO STAY