SP leader Akhilesh Yadav faces backlash on his INDIA alliance remarks

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], October 18 (ANI): BJP leader Ramchander Rao, on Wednesday took aim at Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s statement on seat sharing among parties of the INDIA alliance stating that bickering in the Opposition grouping has already started to surface.

“With elections to five states and parliamentary elections due in few months, bickering in the INDIA alliance have already surfaced, Akhilesh Yadav has already questioned whether the INDIA alliance is at the state level or national level,” Rao said.

The Telangana leader further said that Opposition alliance is not able to take a unified stance for the upcoming assembly elections in five states and partners in the INDIA have now differences with the Congress party.

“For sure the INDIA alliance will not be able to put up a united fight,” said Rao who noted that the bickering among members of the Opposition will prove that the alliance can’t fight with the BJP.

Reacting to Akhilesh Yadav’s statement, RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari also said that it will be difficult to defeat the BJP if the alliance leaders are not patient.

“Akhilesh Yadav should not forget that Congress has footprint in entire country. He should also understand that considering the current state of Indian politics, it will be really difficult to defeat BJP if all the parties, including ours do not show patience, without which we cannot put up a tough fight against BJP,” the RJD leader said.

On being asked if regional parties should compromise to some extent at the national level, the former Rajya Sabha member said, “There is no doubt that regional and national parties are different. Our party RJD has contested from several places but our land and roots are in Bihar, similarly, the roots of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s politics have been in Uttar Pradesh, they now have an MLA in Mumbai as well but we can’t say that it (Samajwadi Party) has the position of a national party.”

“If we (RJD and SP) have our base and roots outside of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh then we should get the opportunity to contest there but we cannot insist on an alliance at the national level,” said Tiwari.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Rakesh Sinha said that questions regarding seat sharing on “how, when and where it will happen” were not appropriate at present.

“INDIA alliance has had three meetings and Akhilesh Yadav can only tell if he was there in them or not and when discussions were held on all the issues during the meetings then Akhilesh Yadav should also know all the things or he should get information about them about what all policies and strategies have been formed on seat sharing,” said Sinha.

The Jharkhand Congress leader said that all the constituents of the INDIA bloc held discussions on seat sharing in the third meeting of the grouping held in Mumbai after which a coordination committee was formed.

“Akhilesh Yadav is a senior leader and since everything is already been discussed, making such statements in public is not appropriate,” Rakesh Sinha said.

On Tuesday, while speaking to reporters about the allocation of seats in the INDIA alliance in Madhya Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav said that the Congress party should clarify on who will get how many seats in the alliance and whether the alliance will be at a national level or on a state level.

The Samajwadi Party, which is aspiring to expand the party beyond Uttar Pradesh to get national status, on released a list of nine candidates for the November 17 assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh while the Congress on Sunday released its first list 144 candidates for the state.