RJD vice-president Tejashwi Yadav on Monday offered full support to the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the general elections, saying the alliance was the best thing that could have happened and will go down the history as big step in Indian politics.
“We have no doubt that the BJP will be wiped out of UP and Bihar. The SP-BSP alliance has sent a message across the country,” Yadav said at a joint press conference in Lucknow along with Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav.
Saying that the country was facing an undeclared emergency, Tejaswhi said that the BJP was fiddling with the Constitution of India and wanted to replace it with the RSS ideologue MS Golwalkar’s book Bunch of Thoughts.
Congratulating Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati for coming together, he said that RJD leader Lalu Yadav had dreamt of such an alliance.
“This alliance was a dream that (RJD president) Laluji (Prasad) saw. This alliance will fight the dangers that the country is facing and will defeat the RSS agenda. I congratulate Mayawati ji and Akhilesh ji for forging this alliance in national interest. It was necessary in light of the situation in the country right now. Those who were slaves of British are in power right now,” he said.
At the same time, he said that the two states of UP and Bihar will decide who will form the next government at the Centre.
“Uttar Pradesh has 120 seats, Bihar has 40 seats and if you add Chhattisgarh’s 14 seats, that’s 134 seats that the BJP will not be able to win in the Lok Sabha elections,” Tejashwi said.
Read: SP-BSP alliance: An important part of the jigsaw is now in place
On Sunday, Tejashwi had underlined that the alliance was first envisaged by his father, Lalu Prasad, after the regional parties in Bihar and UP had suffered electoral setback in 2014 polls due to various factors including PM Narendra Modi’s soaring popularity in the Hindi hinterland.
RJD had then allied with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) to form a grand alliance and defeated the BJP in the Bihar assembly elections, but Nitish soon went back to the BJP-led NDA fold, leaving RJD in the lurch.
Tejashwi also raised the recent CBI controversy and said that the investigating agencies had lost their independence. “The CBI and ED are no longer investigating agencies. They have now become alliance partners of the BJP,” he said.
Referring to Lalu Yadav, who is in jail, Tejashwi said that the only reason that Lalu was in jail is because “Modiji saw him as a threat”.
“Samajwadi Party and BSP are enough to beat Modi, the byelections are also an indication of it. You can also read Rahul (Gandhi)’s statement, he has said ‘BJP is not going to get seats here, who is in alliance is not important’,” Tejashwi said.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Tejashwi said that the before the elections, he had promised many things, but had not fulfilled any of his promises and accused the BJP of working towards polarising the society.
“People are unhappy with Modi. Modi had showed people many dreams. He had promised a special package for Bihar. But later, said he can’t give it. All of his promises, Make in India, smart cities, Rs 15 lakh in each account, jobs… he hasn’t kept any of his promises. All you see today is mob lynching and farmer suicides. Our chowkidaar has cheated the country,” Tejashwi said.
“The atmosphere in the country is getting vitiated,” Tejashwi said, while referring to the recent controversy in which Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah had been cursed and told to go to Pakistan.
Not holding back, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav criticised the prime minister and said that people were unhappy with the government at the Centre.
“There are no jobs. The traders have been put in jeopardy. People want to remove the BJP government. They are happy with the SP and BSP’s alliance. People all over the country are standing up against the BJP because they have cheated everyone. They promised us a bullet train, but ran it from Ahmedabad to Mumbai. People in the region would have been happier if the bullet train went from Delhi to Lucknow to Ranchi,” Akhilesh said.
He welcomed Tejashwi and said that with the RJD’s support, the SP-BSP alliance will defeat the BJP.
“With your joining, the alliance will become stronger. At the time of election, our youth, our farmers will defeat the BJP,” he said.
First Published: Jan 14, 2019 14:30 IST
Source: HindustanTimes