Tejashwi promises full support to BSP-SP alliance

Lucknow: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav Monday promised full support to the BSP-SP alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, asserting that the move by the two regional parties to come together to fight the BJP has gone down well throughout the country.

Stating that the alliance will be hailed in the future, Tejashwi also said Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will decide who will come to power at the Centre after the general elections.

"Our organisation in Uttar Pradesh will lend support to the alliance," he told newspersons in Lucknow after meeting Samajwadi Party(SP) president Akhilesh Yadav. The RJD leader had met Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) supremo Mayawati in Lucknow Sunday night.

"It is not just UP but the entire country where the message of alliance has gone...(now) the people of UP and Bihar will decide as to who will come to power at the Centre." Akhilesh responded saying Tejashwi's offer of support will further cement the alliance.

Both Tejashwi and Akhilesh also targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) claiming that people will oust the party from power.

"The people of the country are today unhappy with the BJP and want to remove it," Akhilesh said, adding the alliance in UP has been received well.

"...from Delhi to Kolkata, people are against the BJP as all have been deceived by them," he said.

"I can assure the BJP that we samajwadis will not change our language even if they try," Akhilesh added.

To a question on the Congress being left out of the alliance in UP, Tejashwi, whose party is in alliance with the Rahul Gandhi-led party in Bihar, said, "The aim is same, to defeat the BJP... all saw how the SP and BSP gave a stern reply to the BJP in the recent bypolls (in UP). The result is before everyone."               Claiming that people are not happy with the BJP, Tejashwi said they had also come to "cheat" Bihar, with the prime minister promising special package.

He also referred to "CM chacha" (Nitesh Kumar) going with the BJP after breaking the alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal(RJD).

"This step of the BSP and the SP is going to be hailed in later stages," he said, adding it will prevent the country from falling into the "clutches" of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS).

Tejashwi said his visit to congratulate the BSP and the SP was in fact realisation of the dream visualised by his father and RJD president Lalu  Prasad.

Claiming  there is undeclared Emergency in the country, he said all constitutional institutions are being damaged to serve personal interests and there is also an effort to replace the Constitution by MS Golwalkar's (RSS leader) "Bunch of Thoughts" and the "Nagpuri law".

Tejashwi also referred to the CBI and the ED saying his family and he himself, even when he was 13 years old, has been facing cases but stressed there was no need to compromise and instead fight against them.

"There is a move to tarnish and sully the image by giving negative publicity...after elections all will come to know who is dishonest and how the 'chowkidar' has tricked the people of the country and only indulged in jumlebaazi," Tejashwi said targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tejaswhi hoped that the alliance formed in Uttar Pradesh will be extended to Bihar and that all parties will work together to defeat the BJP.

"In UP there are 80 seats while Bihar has 40 Lok Sabha seats...along with Jharkhand which has 14 seats a major chunk of 134 seats are in these states...The BJP has around 115 seats of these...with alliance in these states," he said, predicting that the BJP will lose 100 seats.

Tejashwi's support for the BSP-SP alliance drew snide remarks from the ruling NDA in Bihar with BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand wondering whether it was part of "strong arm tactics" against the Congress, its ally in the mahagathbandhan.

Sources said that despite the alliance being announced in Uttar Pradesh, parties like the RJD could be accommodated on isolated seats on the lines of Kairana, where Tabassum Hasan won on RLD ticket in a Lok Sabha by-election though she had close links with the Samajwadi Party.

In return, the RJD, which already has its alliance with the Congress in Bihar, could accommodate some candidates of the BSP and the Samajwadi Party, sources said.

"I am the youngest. I have come to wish her (Mayawati) on her birthday in advance and take blessings...she is a mature leader and we should  keep getting her guidance in future," Tejashwi said after meeting Mayawati.

Later, Tejashwi shared his pictures with Mayawati on social media, in which he is seen touching the feet of the BSP supremo.