Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati on Saturday announced a pre-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh aiming to defeat the BJP in the 2019 general elections.
In a joint press meet at a posh hotel in the city, Mayawati said, both parties will contest 38 seats each in Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 parliamentary constituencies. They won’t contest two Congress strongholds – Amethi, which is Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s constituency, and Sonia Gandhi’s seat Raebareli.
“This alliance will give guru-chela Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah sleepless nights,” Mayawati said.
On his part, Akhilesh said, “The alliance was necessary for BSP and SP to come together to defeat the arrogance of BJP.”
“The saffron party can go to any extent to create differences between workers of BSP and SP,” he added saying them to stay united and counter any such tactic.
Akhilesh also said, “I want to tell all my workers, any insult to Mayawatiji is a personal insult to me.”
This is exactly after 26 years that both the arch-rival parties have come together to contest the elections against the BJP.
In 1993, the Samajwadi Party and BSP came together to defeat BJP at the peak of the Ram Temple movement to form a coalition government in Uttar Pradesh.
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