Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said that canards were being spread about the possible alliance of his party with Bahujan Samaj Party and other small parties.
He said that Bharatiya Janata Party was behind such news appearing at regular intervals in a section of the media.
“It is the ‘dirty tricks department’ of the BJP that is spreading and even planting stories in a section of the media about the alliance of SP with the BSP and others. Nothing has been finalised as yet and everything will happen in due course,” Akhilesh said while addressing a meeting of party MLAs and MLCs in Lucknow on Wednesday.
The SP chief also clarified his position over the candidature of Congress president Rahul Gandhi as the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
“Why should I comment about the candidate for the Prime Minister’s office after 2019 Lok Sabha elections? This issue will be decided only after the elections,” he said.
On Tuesday, Akhilesh had expressed his disagreement with DMK chief MK Stalin’s suggestion to make Rahul Gandhi the prime ministerial candidate of the anti-BJP front. Akhilesh had said, “People are unhappy with the BJP. Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao, Mamataji and Sharad Pawarji have attempted to bring together all leaders for the alliance. If someone is voicing his opinion, it does not mean that all alliance partners will have the same opinion.”
Akhilesh also said in the meeting that be it Parliament or Assembly, the BJP was scared of debate on burning issues concerning common people, particularly farmers.
He charged that the law and order situation in UP was in a shambles and aggressive statements by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath were vitiating the atmosphere in the state.
A senior SP leader said that a section of Hindi media was saying that the SP and BSP had sealed a deal to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“It is also being said that we have agreed to give three seats to Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal. The SP chief sees these as a deliberate attempt to sabotage a possible coming together of opposition parties to fight the BJP. We have credible reasons to believe that such reports are appearing at the behest of the BJP,” said the senior SP leader.