Split in alliance? Congress skips Akhilesh Yadav’s first rally in Sultanpur

After the announcement about the alliance of Samajwadi Party with Congress, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in gis forst campaign speech on Tuesday claimed that his party would have easily win more than 250 seats in the state to form a majority government if they would have contested the elections alone. But now since they have formed an alliance with congress, they would win more than 300 seats out of the 403 seats in the house.

Akhilesh Yadav chose Sultanpur for the first official election rally which raised some eye brows at first, since the district will go to polls only in the third phase. Sultanpur Congress district committee president Krishna Kumar Mishra in an interview told Indian Express that he stayed away from the Chief Minister’s programme because he was yet to receive any official communication on his party’s alliance with the SP and there was no clarity on the seats being given to the Congress in the seat-sharing arrangement. He said, “I cannot attend SP events until the Congress state or



national chief issues guidelines or directions in this regard. The news that I have received is only through the media. There is no official communication yet from the party top brass.”

Akhilesh Yadav targeted the BJP-led government at the Centre in his speech by saying that their demonetisation move has adversely affected the common people all over the country. He also said that the Samajwadi Party has provided financial relief of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of the people who died while standing in queues outside banks to withdraw or exchange the notes. He said, “BJP ke paas yadi vikas ka raasta hota to parivartan dikhai deta (change would have been visible if BJP had charted the road to development)”.

The UP CM further talked about how the previous Budgets had nothing in store for the poor and it is “possible that the next budget could have some announcements copied from schemes of Samajwadis”. The BJP government promised ‘achche din’ but “handed brooms to the people of Delhi and asked others to do yoga”.