Samajwadi Party (SP) president and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday claimed that the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) worked like the B team of the BJP and that its candidates for the 2022 Assembly polls were decided at the ruling party's office in a bid to keep his party at bay. His remarks come two days after BSP leader Umashankar Singh had accused Akhilesh of being the ‘B team’ of the BJP. Talking to mediapersons in Sitapur district on Sunday, Akhilesh said, “The BSP has lost the path shown by Dr BR Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram. The party is with the BJP. In the Vidhan Sabha elections, the BSP candidates were not fielded to win, but to check the SP from getting ahead.” Akhilesh said the BJP gets raids done against Opposition leaders to tarnish their image. “Raids are done only against leaders of those parties which are fighting against the BJP. All these raids are political. The BJP doesn't have clean intentions," he said. During the Assembly elections, the former chief minister said, the house of a perfume businessman in Kannauj was raided and the BJP falsely propagated that money was found at the house of an industrialist linked to the SP. “The BJP tried to defame our party but when the truth came out, he turned out to be a BJP man,” he said. The BJP conducts raids ahead of elections as a strategy to defame opposition parties and their leaders, he alleged, adding that the leaders who were accused of wrongdoings by the CBI, ED and the Income Tax Department became “safe” once they joined saffron party, he claimed. “Now there are no raids in their places,” he added. Akhilesh asserted that farmers and the youth will ensure the BJP's defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “The Samajwadi Party will fight the Lok Sabha elections together with all its alliance partners,” he said. The former CM alleged that the BJP does not follow the Constitution and the law of the land. “Today, all illegal constructions in Uttar Pradesh are being done by those belonging to the BJP. “When Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath goes on a tour in the state, the mafia welcomes him. The CM withdrew cases against himself and his deputy,” Akhilesh said further. On Friday, BSP leader Umashankar Singh had accused Akhilesh of being the ‘B team’ of the BJP, saying the SP was working closely with the saffron party. He said that as soon as the BJP came to power in the state in 2017, the party started probing several works done by the previous Akhilesh Yadav government but no decision has come out in any inquiry to date. He alleged that SP’s chief general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav “often holds meetings with senior BJP leaders and participates in their programmes”.
