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Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav claimed that his party would win 350 seats in the 2022 UP Assembly elections and form the next government in the state. Predicting the BJP’s defeat and accusing Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of blocking development and encouraging corruption oppression during his regime, Yadav said people now want a change.
Having burnt his fingers in the 2017 UP Assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha elections by forging alliance with the Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party respectively, Yadav ruled out any tie-up for the state elections next year but insisted that his party would join forces with like-minded smaller parties.
“I appeal to all those who want to defeat the BJP to help the Samajwadi Party. My experience with big parties has not been good, I will not get into any alliance with them,” Akhilesh told a TV channel in Lucknow on Wednesday.
Ruling out a repeat of ‘Bua –Bhatija’ (truck with the BSP ahead of 2019 general elections) act, Akhilesh admitted that a few BSP leaders were in touch with him.
On Congress, the SP leader said the party was too weak to beat the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. “We did not have a good experience with them in 2017. We gave them over 100 seats but we could not win. The people of the state too have rejected the Congress,” said Akhilesh, sidestepping a question on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's mission to rebuild the Congress in UP.
The SP chief further said that his party was targeting 350 of the 403 seats of UP Assembly in the crucial elections next year that is widely seen as a test of voters’ pulse ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP will seek re-election and a third term in power.
“The BJP is going to lose the 2022 UP elections. They failed the people of the state in the biggest test of their leadership during the pandemic. People were abandoned by the government. The so-called double-engine government - at the Centre and in UP - is going in different directions. The BJP would defeat the BJP in UP,” he said.
The former CM downplayed the ‘Modi factor’ and its potential impact on the UP campaign, flagging infighting and dissidence against Yogi Adityanath over the past few months. Referring to PM Modi’s close aide AK Sharma settling for a party post after much hype about his UP assignment, Akhilesh remarked: “Dilli wale log usko mantri nahin bana paye , unko UP mein vote kaun dega” (People in Delhi couldn’t even make him a minister, who will vote for him).”
Targeting the Yogi government’s “mishandling” of Covid crisis in the state, the SP chief accused the regime of hiding actual figures of deaths. He also sought to explain a controversial remark that he made on ‘not taking the BJP vaccine’ (a reference to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin that was cleared for use while still in clinical trials) and said, “I had only refused to take the vaccine initially as it had not completed all trials.”
Asked when he plans to take the shot, Akhilesh kept it open-ended and said: “I have told the UP government that if it is able to vaccinate all the poor free of cost by Diwali, I will take the vaccine. I had Covid in April and scientifically, I am safe for at least three months.”