Akhilesh Announces Samajwadi Party's Plan to Contest State Polls Alone, Reserves Comment on Former Ally BSP

Lucknow: Months after the ‘break up’ with Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav announced on Monday that his party will be contesting the 2022 state assembly elections on its own. Akhilesh Yadav, who had been silent over the issue of parting ways with the Bahujan Samaj Party after the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, finally declared the party's future course of action as he addressed a press conference to announce rescheduling of his visit to Rampur,

On being asked for his comments on BSP, the former chief minister said, “I will not speak anything on BSP. We will be contesting the 2022 state assembly elections on our own.”

Indicating tie-ups with smaller parties instead of the big ones, ahead of bypolls on 13 assembly seats, Akhilesh said, “Our experience with big parties is not hidden from anyone, hence we might be looking for some tie ups with small parties.”

The SP had joined hands with the Bahujan Samaj Party for the Lok Sabha elections, despite which the alliance faced defeat. Following the poll debacle, the BSP called off the alliance.

In 2017 assembly polls, the SP had contested in alliance with the Congress but that too didn’t work out and the alliance was called off later on.

Interestingly, on August 23, former ally of Yogi Adityanath government and chief of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, Om Prakash Rajbhar had met Akhilesh Yadav at SP headquarters in Lucknow. The meeting between the two leaders, which had lasted for an hour, holds importance as the bypolls draw nearer.

The meeting between Rajbhar and the SP chief had triggered speculation of a possible understanding between the two parties. Out of 13 assembly seats, Rajbhar’s SBSP may help the SP on two seats of Purvanchal, namely Jalalpur assembly seat in Ambedkarnagar and Balha assembly seat in Bahraich.

The Samajwadi Party had recently dissolved the party's entire Uttar Pradesh unit, including the state executive and district and youth wings. The SP chief also asked his party workers to prepare well for the bypolls on a serious note. “Common people are now fed up of the BJP rule and we should be aiming at winning all assembly seats in the by-polls,” Yadav said.