Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday sent a subtle signal to ally Congress regarding the Amethi and Raebareli Lok Sabha constituencies, telling News18 that all steps should be taken to corner the Bharatiya Janata Party on seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Yadav spoke to News18 after filing his nomination from Kannauj. “All steps should be taken to corner the BJP (BJP ko gherne ke liye har kadam uthana chahiye)…But I can’t make my decision as someone else’s decision. That is a call of their party (Congress). It will be their decision on what they think, what they do. I won’t give any advice to any party,” the former UP chief minister said when asked if he felt that his allies Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should fight from the Amethi and Raebareli seats.
Yadav said his decision to contest from Kannauj will create some “pressure” and added that the BJP needs to be given a strong fight on all seats of Uttar Pradesh.
The SP chief said Kannauj is an old seat of the party and Ram Manohar Lohia had represented it. “I became an MP for the first time from Kannauj, then (wife) Dimple Yadav also was the MP from here. People here have chosen me. Kannauj has an old connection with us, I learnt my politics here. We never let development suffer in Kannauj, and if I win, I will usher in development again,” he told News18.
Voting will be held in Kannauj on May 13 in the fourth phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
The former CM also said that his party is working on promoting communal harmony and rejecting the politics of hate allegedly being propagated by the BJP.
Yadav recollected the days of the past when he filed nomination papers as an SP candidate from Kannauj in the 2000 bypolls. He said that his late father Mulayam Singh Yadav’s friends including Amar Singh and others accompanied him while filing the papers.
“Those elections were very different as in those times the BJP was supporting the BSP in order to prevent SP from coming to power. Contesting Lok Sabha Polls from Kannauj was the party’s decision. This was the land from where I won three times until I resigned in 2012. This is the land which made Lohiya ji win, Neta ji (Mulayam) win, and Dimple Yadav win,” Yadav said. The SP chief said he has faith in the people of Kannauj, who stood by him even if he was out of the constituency.
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