‘We finally got our math right’, Akhilesh Yadav on SP-BSP alliance
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said on Thursday that his Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj party (BSP) coming closer was all about getting the maths right.
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said on Thursday that his Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj party (BSP) coming closer was all about getting the maths right.
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said on Friday that his Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj party (BSP) coming closer was all about getting the maths right. (HT Photo)
Speaking a day before the two leaders are expected to announce the alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the SP chief said, “We decided to correct our counting, our arithmetic. We corrected our arithmetic and the results came in three Lok Sabha and one assembly bypolls.”
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He was speaking in Kannauj at #ChaupalOnTwitter, an inititive to encourage conversation between leaders and the community. Twitter India and several leaders have partnered to launch the initiative.
Refusing to divulge details about the agenda for the alliance, Yadav said, “It won’t be appropriate to give any details before the press conference tomorrow.”
The two parties first publically spoke about the alliance in March last year and then experimented with it in three Lok Sabha bypolls and one state assembly bypoll. The BJP lost all those seats to the alliance.
The SP-BSP alliance can be a formidable opposition to the BJP which won 71 Lok Sabha seats in UP in 2014.
The two leaders, in a recent meeting in Delhi, discussed the modalities of seat sharing for the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, according to sources.
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Pankaj Jaiswal is Bureau Chief, Uttar Pradesh. He covers-analyses politics, and assists Hindustan Times reporters across the state. He has 30 years of experience in print media reporting. Based in Lucknow, he started his journalism career at a national English daily in Kanpur after graduating from Christ Church College. He joined Hindustan Times, Lucknow edition, as part of the launch team in 1997. He’s covered everything from rural distress to science, environment, wildlife, and crime. He has travelled extensively in Uttar Pradesh for rural, development, political, and election reporting. His continued interest in rural issues, rural distress, and development journalism has fetched him a handful of prestigious awards and fellowships. Pankaj is a photojournalist too. He clinched the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting—First Prize in 2009 and Third Prize in 2006—for exposing Bundelkhand’s devastating drought and distress: crop failures, farm suicides, migration, debt, and the injustice of meagre compensation cheques between Rs 10 and Rs 20 to farmers by the government from crop loss. He also has been awarded with Hindustan Times internal 'Journalist of the Month' citation over half a dozen times. His relentless reporting in Hindustan Times pulled the Bundelkhand crisis out of obscurity and forced it into the national spotlight, prompting media and government action on one of India’s most neglected regions. Over a decade, he filed hundreds of hard-hitting stories, travelling repeatedly from Lucknow deep into Bundelkhand. He also received the Special Mention KC Kulish International Award 2009. Pankaj also did long-haul political reporting on the most intense political family feud—’The Yadav Family Feud’—between 2016 and 2022.
