In a massive show of strength in western U.P., the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on Tuesday pitched their alliance as the foremost contender to the ruling BJP in the 2022 Assembly polls.
Addressing a massive crowd of over a lakh, SP president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD chief Jayant Singh said their alliance would provide the “true double engine government” in U.P.
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In the wake of growing anxiety on the delay in announcing the alliance, the RLD chief turned a scheduled RLD public meeting in Dabatwa village of Meerut into the first joint Parivartan Sandesh (message of change) rally of both parties.
Mr. Yadav said the massive turnout was proof that the “BJP’s sun is bound to set in West U.P.” “In East U.P., the BJP is already facing a khadera (eviction).” During the BJP’s rule, farmers were humiliated and the farmers’ agitation will ensure that baees (2022) will see badlaav (change),” he said.
Riding on the farmers’ agitation, the two parties seek to consolidate the Jat, Yadav, and Muslim vote bank and make a dent in the Dalit support of the Bahujan Samaj Party and BJP. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s contribution has been repeatedly invoked, apart from socialist stalwarts Chaudhary Charan Singh and Ram Manohar Lohia.
Both the leaders underlined the importance of brotherhood in the region which provided rich dividends to the BJP in the 2017 elections when the party fetched won as many as 86 out of 110 seats in western U.P.
Mr Yadav described the BJP as creating divides in society — “ Jo paida kare khayi, wohi Bhajpayi (one who spawns a rift, he is a BJP member),” he said.
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Earlier, Mr Singh said the BJP’s one-point agenda was to spread hate.
“The Chief Minister’s address starts with Aurangzeb and ends with the reference of the exodus from Kairana. Why does he not talk about the exodus of youth from the State because of lack of employment opportunities? In fact, the government is raining lathis on the unemployed youth,” he said.
Taking a dig at the firebrand image of Mr. Adityanath, the RLD chief said it was fake as how could the CM ignore the demands of farmers and not utter a word in their support?
“It is the farmers who have forced the PM to repeal the laws and now the BJP people are describing it as their success. You can’t have both sides of the coin,” he remarked, adding they would raise a memorial in the memory of farmers in Meerut.
Praising Mr Yadav for his engineering background and push for infrastructure development during the SP government, Mr. Singh said the youth would send the current CM to the company of cows and calves whom he loved so much.
Later talking to reporters, Mr Yadav responded to the PM’s statement in Gorakhpur that those with ‘red caps’ were concerned only about the red beacons (symbol of power), saying, “The PM should tell us why a Cabinet Minister whose car trampled innocent farmers in Lakhimpur is still holding on to a sensitive department.”
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Pointing at the swelling crowd that broke security barriers, Mr Singh said it was not brought in buses, the people have come out of their volition, in their tractors.
Responding to the seat-sharing formula, Mr Singh said both parties would contest on 403 seats. “Which seat will be fought on whose party’s symbol could be decided later and is not a contentious issue.”
Mr Singh declared that the next public meeting will be held in the Iglas town of Aligarh on December 23, the birth anniversary of Chaudhary Charan Singh.
