Don't believe Congress fielded weak candidates, they lost people's support: Akhilesh Yadav

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday rejected Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi’s claim to have fielded weak candidates to eat into BJP’s vote share in Uttar Pradesh. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said that no party does such things and people of the state is not supporting the Congress. "I don't believe that Congress has fielded weak candidates anywhere. No party does it. People are not with them," ANI news agency quoted Yadav as saying.

Yadav also rebutted Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s allegations that Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party were being controlled by the BJP and said that it was their alliance that will stop the saffron party’s “bad politics”.

“No one controls us. We are political parties. It is the SP, BSP & RLD alliance in UP that is poised to give a setback to the ruling party. Our alliance will stop the bad policies of BJP,” he said.

He said that the BJP and the Congress were two parts of the same coin and there was no difference between the parties and it was the Congress which taught the BJP to misuse the central agencies.

“There is no difference between the BJP and the Congress. Congress wants to benefit the BJP. Who taught the central agencies to intimidate Opposition leaders? BJP has learnt to misuse the ED, Central Bureau of Investigation & other agencies against leaders in opposition from the Congress,” the SP chief said.

Speaking about his father and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav being the prime ministerial candidate of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance, he said that although it would be good if “Netaji” – what supporters fondly call Mulayam Singh Yadav – but he was not in the race for the top job.

“Our alliance wants to give India a new PM. Party will decide about the PM when final seat tally is out. It'll be good if Netaji gets the honour (to be PM) but I feel he is probably not in prime ministerial race,” Yadav added.

The Samajwadi Party has formed a grand alliance with Mayawati’s BSP and Ajit Singh’s RLD in Uttar Pradesh. As per their seat sharing pact, the Samajwadi Party is contesting on 37 seats while the BSP has fielded its candidates on 38 seats. Ajit Singh’s RLD has been given 3 seats while two seats –Amethi and Rae Bareli - were left vacant for the Congress.