Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday reiterated that he had no ambition to become the prime minister of the country after the Lok Sabha election in 2019.
The SP chief maintained that he never aspired to lead the country and his sole ambition was to work for the development of Uttar Pradesh.
Akhilesh Yadav was the chief minister of UP for five years, from 2012 to March 2017.
The repeated assertion of the SP president of not being in the race for the prime minister’s office is seen as a move to keep Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati in good humour.
Former chief minister of Haryana and Jat leader Om Prakash Chautala and others have proposed the name of Mayawati to lead the opposition’s grand alliance.
The prime-ministerial ambitions of Mayawati are well known and she had made a pitch for the top post during the 2009 Lok Sabha election. Moreover, the Samajwadi Party is desperate for alliance with the BSP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, even at the cost of being a junior partner and BSP getting the lion’s share of over 40 Lok Sabha seats in UP and the rest going to other parties.
UP has 80 Lok Sabha seats.
Akhilesh’s statement assumes more significance and relevance amidst heightened efforts by opposition leaders for a grand alliance, with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu meeting Rahul Gandhi, the president of his arch rival Congress, and joining hands with the grand old party.
Addressing the office-bearers, district presidents, general secretaries and vice-presidents of his party, Akhilesh Yadav said the 2019 Lok Sabha election was going to be a do or die battle for the opposition and the future of democracy would rest on its outcome.
He said an emergency-like situation was prevailing in the country and the Bharatiya Janata Party, by trampling constitutional institutions, was attempting to deprive the bahujan samaj comprising over 80 per cent of the country’s population, of their due share in the power structure and national cake.
“The results of the 2019 Lok Sabha election would be decisive for the future of democracy in the country as the BJP is aggressively pursuing divisive politics and is undermining important institutions and constitutional bodies and damaging the secular fabric of the nation,” the SP president said.
“RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), the ideological mentor of the BJP, is spreading communal hatred in the name of Ram temple in Ayodhya, in its attempt to polarise the electorate on communal lines ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election,” Akhilesh said.
He asked the party leaders to be vigilant, never lower the guard and beware of falling in the traps to be laid by the BJP in coming days.
Akhilesh said the BJP had launched a vicious campaign to malign the SP as they were masters in spreading falsehood and creating false political narrative.
Terming the BJP as the rabidly caste-based party, the SP chief said it was spreading communal hatred for its narrow political ends.