New Delhi: After the Samajwadi Party’s rout in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide, outgoing chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday defended his decision to fight the polls in an alliance with the Congress.
Akhilesh Yadav has also tendered his resignation to Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik after his Samjawadi Party’s defeat in the assembly elections.
While accepting the people’s verdict, Yadav said he will only accept responsibility for the Samajwadi Party’s defeat after analysing the election results.
Election trends as of 5 pm projected about 50 seats for the Samajwadi Party while the Congress was reduced to just seven seats. This will be the worst ever loss for Samajwadi Party, which had won 224 seats out of the 403 assembly seats in the 2012 assembly election to form a majority government.
“I accept the verdict. I thank the party workers who supported and worked for us. We have worked for UP’s progress and I am happy the alliance happened and it benefitted us,” Akhilesh Yadav told a press conference in Lucknow.
Yadav indicated that the alliance forged by him and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will continue.
“It is an alliance of two young leaders,” said Yadav.
On Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati’s allegations that electronic voting machines had been tampered with to give the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) an advantage, Yadav said the matter should be investigated.
“Some people and parties have raised this question, and I will also look into it at my level. There should be an investigation,” he said.
The BJP’s resounding victory in the elections to the 403-member state assembly was in line with its performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when it won 71 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh.
