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UP polls: Mulayam Yadav 'forced' to campaign for son Akhilesh, says BJP contender
Samajwadi Party founder-patron addressed his first public meeting in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on Thursday. He campaigned for his son and party's Karhal candidate Akhilesh Yadav, who is up against BJP's SP Singh Baghel.
A day before the crucial Karhal constituency in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri goes into polls, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate SP Singh Baghel has claimed that Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav was “forcefully” brought to the town this week to campaign for son Akhilesh Yadav.
BJP's Karhal candidate Baghel says Mulayam was ‘forced’ to campaign for Akhilesh
“Mulayam Singh Yadav did not come to Karhal willingly,” Baghel was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
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Akhilesh Yadav is contesting his first assembly election from home turf Mainpuri’s Karhal this poll season. His father Mulayam Yadav stepped out for his first public meeting in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh polls on Thursday. Addressing a crowd in Karhal, the SP founder-patron said the party can “fulfill aspirations” of every citizen of the northern state.
Referring to the campaign, Baghel, who is fighting the Samajwadi Party chief from the constituency, on Saturday said that “children become elderly parents' support system” but Akhilesh is the “first child who is taking help from his older and ailing father" to save himself from getting defeated in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
“We will not find any such example in Indian politics,” ANI quoted him as saying.
He said SP president Akhilesh is the “captain of that ship, which is sinking and he is fleeing from it which is why he now requires the help of former captain (Mulayam) whom he removed from the captainship in 2017".
The BJP candidate's remark is the latest amid the barrage of attacks that both the parties have been throwing at each other ahead of the third phase of polls on Sunday.
The war of words escalated after the alleged attack on Baghel's convoy on Tuesday night in Karhal.
In his police complaint, the BJP leader said that stones and sticks were thrown at his car that led to the breaking of the glass panes.
Superintendent of police (SP) for Mainpuri Madhuban Singh said that the attackers were a group of men, who emerged from a nearby farm field and raised slogans against Baghel.
The BJP strongly condemned the attack, and blamed it on “SP goons" sent by Akhilesh.
Union minister Anurag Thakur has complained to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and asked to deploy paramilitary forces in all polling booths of Karhal.
Akhilesh Yadav, however, has denied any involvement in the incident, and said the BJP is “frustrated” that it cannot win the polls, and is “getting itself attacked”.
Karhal is among 59 constituencies that will go into polls on Sunday. The UP election results - being held in seven phases- will be out on March 10.
