Former UP Chief Minister says the Opposition will have to build its own narrative to win in the Lok Sabha polls.
New Delhi
The 2024 road to Delhi passes through Uttar Pradesh and for the big fight against the BJP, the Opposition parties will have to bury the memories of mutual bad experiences of the past for a victory in parliamentary elections about nine months from now, said Samajwadi Party (SP) chief and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Speaking at the keynote session of the Festival of Ideas hosted by NewsX, The Sunday Guardian and India News that are a part of the iTV Network here on Thursday, Yadav said the SP will discuss seat-sharing with like-minded parties with a “large heart” to topple the NDA government, but claimed that the time had not come to discuss whether Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi in 2024.
The Opposition alliance will take all members together and reach its victory with the help of the PDA—Pichra, Dalit and Alpsankyak—communities’ support. He took a diplomatic stand on the question of what the SP would do if Congress leader Rahul Gandhi fights the Lok Sabha contest from Amethi, and said the party would uphold the coalition principles by following the policy of “shishthachar” as propounded by SP icon Netaji Mulayam Singh.
Expressing the INDIA alliance’s resolve to stop the BJP’s march in Uttar Pradesh in 2024, Yadav said, “Road to Delhi is from Uttar Pradesh… UP nahin to Dilli nahin. The BJP had won the Lok Sabha elections only because of its success in UP, but this time we are confident of taking it on in the state.” Yadav expressed confidence that there would not be any problems in the INDIA bloc on the issue of picking a Prime Minister after victory as there are multiple choices for PM candidate.” “We have a youngster, woman and potential leaders from different religion or castes,” he said, without directly ruling out himself as a potential young Prime Ministerial candidate. Talking about the NDA, the SP chief said the NDA does not have so many choices for the op post.
“They talk of the double engine but the problem is that the two engines are colliding,” he said. He said it would not be sensible to fight the BJP on the issues that it wants the rivals to and the Opposition will have to build its own narrative to win in the Lok Sabha polls. Asked about the best Prime Minister of the country in his view, the SP leader took a cautious stand, saying all prime ministers have done some good work. He also targeted the Uttar Pradesh government over uncontrolled tomato prices and targeting his party’s supporters who had raised voice against costly tomatoes.