Senior Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav said that his party’s alliance party with the Bahujan Samaj Party would wipe out the BJP from Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll. After sharing an acrimonious relations with nephew and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav for close to two years, Shivpal seem to have fallen in line after the spike in Akhilesh’ political stature post Lok Sabha bypoll wins in Gorakhpur and Phulpur.
Shivpal said in Etawah on Tuesday that the BJP was unnerved by the coming together of the two arch rivals and was now digging the past of both parties aiming to spread misinformation and confusion among the cadres of the two parties.
Referring to the over-two-decade-old State Guest House incident in Lucknow, the SP leader said: “The acrimony with Mayawati and her party is a thing of the past. As both parties are walking hand in hand, what is relevant now is to achieve the larger national objective of defeating the BJP which is detrimental to both the state and the nation,” Shivpal said.
He said Mayawati had himself given a clean chit to Akhilesh Yadav and absolved him of the responsibility for the June 1995 Guest House incident maintaining that when that incident happened, Akhilesh was nowhere in politics.
The SP leader said that the defeat of the BJP in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha byelections has forced the ruling party to talk about development.
Yadav said that the BJP no longer accused the Opposition of having no issue or agenda. He said that with the coming together of the SP-BSP, the Opposition had a clear and effective narrative to take on the BJP and its communal agenda.