Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav congratulating during the party’s National Executive meeting in Kolkata on March 18, 2023. Party’s National Vice President Kiranmoy Nanda is in the background. , Photo Credit: ANI
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav said on March 19 that several regional parties and their leaders are trying to form an alliance ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the Congress party should decide what role it will play.
“Several regional parties and some other parties are trying to form an alliance or a front. Mamta Banerjee is also making efforts in that direction, the Chief Minister of Telangana (K. Chandrasekhar Rao) and also the Chief Minister of Bihar (Nitish Kumar). Congress should decide its own role. The Congress is a national party and we are a regional party,” Mr Yadav said.
Speaking to reporters at the conclusion of his party’s national executive meeting, the SP leader said the formula of the front is to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the next general elections.
Mr. Yadav’s stand of maintaining equidistance from the BJP and the Congress is in line with the Trinamool Congress’ stand of not forging an alliance with the Congress before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Mr. Yadav had Called on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at her residence Friday, March 17 in Kolkata.
During the press conference, Mr. Yadav fiercely criticized the BJP government at the Center misuse of central agencies and said that the BJP would be politically exterminated for misusing these agencies, “just like the Congress”.
“Any political party which opposes them (BJP), ED, CBI and Income Tax are behind them,” he added. He said that after West Bengal, if there is any other state in which political workers are targeted the most by central agencies, it is in Uttar Pradesh.
Read this also | UP budget has disappointed every section of the society: Akhilesh Yadav
Mr. Yadav raised the demand of a caste based census And said that neither BJP nor Congress is in favor of this exercise. He alleged that the UPA-2 government had promised to conduct a caste-based census, but later backtracked. “We want the BJP-led central government to conduct a caste census. Many leaders are demanding this. But like the Congress, the saffron party is also not keen on getting it done.
During the conversation, Mr Yadav lashed out at the Uttar Pradesh government on a number of issues including fake encounters, custodial deaths and power crisis in the state.
“Whenever these fake encounters happen [are] Investigated, many officers would find themselves in the dock,” he said.
Mr. Yadav said that Uttar Pradesh, being the largest state of the country, has helped the BJP to come to power at the Center twice. He hoped that after the National Executive meeting of the SP, the party along with its allies would try to defeat the BJP in all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP.