Akhilesh Yadav joins Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra in Agra, days after seat-share deal
Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday joined Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s ongoing Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra, days after seat-share deal for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
While addressing the gathering in the Nyay Yatra, Yadav said that the biggest challenge in the coming days would be to save the democracy and constitution.
“…I would like to thank the public…In the coming days, the biggest challenge is to save the democracy, and the Constitution, to fulfill the dreams of Dr BR Ambedkar, that has been ruined by the BJP… ‘BJP haatao, desh bachao,” Yadav said.
Earlier today, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joined the yatra in Aligarh. The yatra passed from the Aligarh division via Amroha, Sambhal, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Hathras and entered Agra’s division where the SP chief joined and conducted a joint public address with Rahul Gandhi.
Vadra questioned the BJP’s decade-long rule, highlighting concerns over youth unemployment, farmer protests, and inflation in the country, while Rahul Gandhi claimed that the poor are facing injustice in India all the time under the Modi government.
“BJP has been in power for 10 years. Many big events such as the G20 Summit took place, everyone said that the respect of the country is increasing due to such events, even we agree to it, but I want to ask, is the respect of the country not connected with the young, our policemen, and students? There are no jobs for the youth, farmers are still sitting on roads, inflation is a burden for the people of the country,” Vadra said.
The coming together of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav will be a repeat of a similar scene seven years ago in Agra when both the leaders covered a 12 km road show in the Taj city ahead of the UP 2017 assembly elections.
However, all the four parliamentary seats through which the yatra passed on Sunday, namely Aligarh, Hathras (reserved), Agra (reserved) and Fatehpur Sikri, were won by BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, the second version of Bharat Jodo Yatra, led by Rahul Gandhi, which started form Manipur on Januray 14, will culminate in Mumbai on March 20. The first ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ was held from Kanyakumari to Kashmir in 2022-23.
As per the seat-sharing agreement between the Congress and the SP announced for the upcoming elections, the SP is slated to contest on 63 seats and the Congress on 17 out of 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress will contest Rae Bareli, Amethi, Varanasi, Kanpur City, Fatehpur Sikri, Bansgaon, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Maharajganj, Amroha, Jhansi, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Sitapur, Barabanki and Deoria, said SP state unit chief Naresh Uttam Patel.
RaeBareli, Amethi and Varanasi are three crucial seats that Yadav ceded to the Congress. While Varanasi is the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amethi is the one that Rahul Gandhi in 2019 lost to BJP’s Smriti Irani. RaeBareli was Sonia Gandhi’s seat until she vacated it for health reasons and shifted to the Rajya Sabha.
In the 2019 polls, BJP had won 62 seats, while the SP, which fought the elections in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party, had won five seats.