Akhilesh says BJP can't win if polls are fair, calls for sustained effort to defeat ruling party

Lucknow, Sep 19 (PTI) Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday asserted that the BJP cannot win any election if it is held fairly and honestly, and called for sustained efforts to defeat the ruling party.

Addressing party leaders at the SP headquarters here after a review meeting on teachers' and graduates' constituency polls, Yadav said, "We must keep working continuously to defeat the BJP. If elections are free and fair, no BJP candidate can win." According to a party statement, the SP chief accused the BJP government of weakening democracy, "colluding with officials" and "destroying the education system" by commercialising it, raising fees and leaving teaching posts vacant.

He said the SP, during its tenure, had opened schools, colleges and medical institutions and recruited teachers on a large scale, but the BJP "ruined everything" after coming to power.

He further alleged that corruption and irregularities are rampant in recruitments, citing the Lakhimpur Urban Cooperative Bank appointments as an example.

"The BJP government is running a loot-and-lie regime, where jobs and budgets are being divided among their own people," he said, adding that the rights of poor and PDA (Piccdhe, Dalits, and Alpsankhayak) communities are being taken away.

Yadav also attacked the government over inflation, unemployment, black marketing of fertilisers, and GST, saying despite a cut in GST rates, prices of goods have not come down.

Criticising Adityanath, he said the chief minister made a "shameful" claim about the metro project, even though its operations in Lucknow and construction in Kanpur and Agra began during the SP government.

"One should not lie so blatantly that they fall in their own eyes," he said, accusing the BJP of misleading the public. PTI KIS OZ OZ