With the political activities gathering momentum in Uttar Pradesh and main political players scouting for allies, Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav ruled out alliance with big players like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress, but kept the door ajar for the small caste-based parties.
Having burnt the fingers in 2017 UP Assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha elections by forging alliance with the Congress and the BSP respectively, Akhilesh ruled out any tie-up for the Uttar Pradesh election next year and said his party would join forces with like-minded smaller parties. “Those who want to defeat the BJP, I appeal to them to help the Samajwadi Party,” he added.
“My experience with big parties is not good, I will not get into any alliance with them,” Akhilesh said. Ruling out a “Bua -Bhatija” repeat act after his 2019 alliance with BSP flopped, Akhilesh admitted that a few BSP leaders were in touch with him.
On the Congress, he said the party was too weak in UP to beat the BJP. “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 UP have rejected the Congress,” said Akhilesh, sidestepping a question on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s mission to rebuild the Congress in the State.
He said the SP was targeting 350 of UP’s 403 seats in the crucial election that is widely seen as a test of voters’ pulse ahead of the 2024 national election, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP will seek re-election and a third straight term in power.
“The BJP is going to lose the upcoming UP elections... they failed the people of UP in the biggest test of their leadership. People were abandoned by the Government. The so-called double-engine government - at the Centre and in UP - is going in different directions,” he said.
The former Chief Minister downplayed the “Modi factor” and its potential impact on the UP campaign, flagging the infighting and dissidence against Yogi Adityanath over the past few months. Referring to Modi’s close aide AK Sharma settling for a party post after much hype about his UP assignment, Akhilesh remarked, “ Dilli wale log usko mantra nahin bana paye , unkp uttar Pradesh mein vote kaun dega ‘’ (Delhi couldn’t even make him Minister, who will vote for them )”. The BJP would defeat the BJP in UP, he quipped.
Targeting the Yogi Government’s handling of the Covid crisis in the State, especially in the second surge, Akhilesh accused the Government of hiding the true figures of deaths. The SP chief 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.
“I had only refused to take the vaccine initially because it had not completed all the trials,” Akhilesh said to allegations that his comments added to vaccine hesitancy in UP.
On when he planned to take the shot, he 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.” He dismissed the risks involved in delaying vaccination.
“I had Covid in April and scientifically, am safe for three months at least,” he said, asserting that his father and former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had been vaccinated.