Akhilesh Yadav extends support to Mamata Banerjee ahead of Bengal polls

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister has always been a staunch critic of the BJP, alleging that the party had used hatred to win in the 2017 UP assembly elections.

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Monday his party would back the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections, saying he wanted to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Yadav has already once declared his support for the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC in the upcoming West Bengal polls earlier in January. (File photo)

"We will support Mamata Banerjee in the West Bengal assembly elections to defeat the BJP which wants to win by spreading hatred. In 2017 as well, they won in Uttar Pradesh by propagating hatred," Yadav said as quoted by news agency ANI.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister has always been a staunch critic of the BJP, alleging that the party had used hatred to win in the 2017 UP assembly elections. He has even said that any vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) launched while the BJP is in power was untrustworthy.

Yadav has already once declared his support for the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC in the upcoming West Bengal polls earlier in January. He had said that the BJP was trying to polarise voters for electoral gains. "We are against BJP’s attempts to polarise the elections, so we have decided to support the Trinamool Congress," he had said.

The BJP had managed to emerge as the second-largest party in the state in the 2019 general elections and after a win in Bihar, confidence in the party's camp is high. BJP leaders like Amit Shah, Kailash Vijayvargiya and JP Nadda are set to visit the state ahead of the polls.