Just a day before the declaration of Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results, SP state chief Akhilesh Yadav indicated possible support from RLD in an interview with Pankaj Jaiswal.

In the event of fractured mandate, with SP as the largest single party, what are the possibilities? You expect Jayant Chaudhary to join in?
The father (Ajit Singh) would stay in Congress and the son (Jayant) might be with us. But we are confident we would break the majority barrier.

What are the factors behind the hunch?
We had targeted to sway 3% more votes in our favour. By those calculations, we are getting around 193. The exit polls and surveys indicate an 8% swing in our favour. If we believe that, it would be clean sweep.

What kind of government would SP form?
The kind that means business. We will have little time to prove ourselves because Lok Sabha elections are not far. We would not make the kind of mistakes the Mayawati government did.
 
Mayawati’s mistakes?
If we come to power, it would be because of the Mayawati government, which, despite bagging majority, wasted it in a single term.

What is the business that an SP government would do?
We would raise money by engaging in profitable ventures so we can implement what we have promised. We would need about Rs. 10,000 crore in the first year to implement laptop/tablets/unemployment allowance/kanya/vidya dhan. We would give proper tablets, not something like the low-cost Akash. We would give customised laptops and tablets to students with Hindi-Urdu-English languages software.

Would you be the CM? 
The senior leaders want to see Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) as the CM. The government would be under his leadership.

How are the national parties placed? Beni Prasad Verma says Mayawati is better than Mulayam.  
They do not have a foothold. It is amusing that the Congress calls the SP regime goonda raj. It was under the BSP that the Congress state president’s house saw arson by BSP men. We raised more of a voice against it than the Congress did and now, they call Mayawati the better partner.