Akhilesh Yadav: BJP is nervous ahead of Lok Sabha polls

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday, 6 March, took a dig at the BJP over the cabinet expansion in Uttar Pradesh, saying the ruling party is "nervous" ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Yadav was in Sambhal to pay homage to party MP Shafiq-ur-Rehman Burq, who passed away recently.

Later, talking to reporters, he said names of more SP candidates will be announced soon for the parliamentary polls.

"If they (BJP) come to know that they can get (more) votes through one more expansion, then they will do it," Yadav said, when asked for his reaction on the cabinet expansion of the Yogi Adityanath government.

"These people are so nervous that if they come to know that if one of our journalist friends is made a minister, it could help win two Lok Sabha seats they will make him a minister. This expansion has not been done to serve the public and the public understand it," he said.

The elections will be announced soon and the new ministers will not be able to work, he added.

The first expansion of the Yogi Adityanath government was effected on Tuesday, 5 March, with four ministers being sworn in.

The SP chief said that names of more nominees of his party will be announced soon and termed the coming Lok Sabha elections as the biggest fight for saving the Constitution.

"The biggest fight that is going to take place in the country will be to save the Constitution. Babasaheb Ambedkar-ji gave us the Constitution which provides equal rights and respect to everyone... once there was 'samudra manthan' (churning of the ocean), now there will be 'samvidhan manthan' (churning of the Constitution)," he said.

To a question on Prime Minister Narendra Modi making family an issue in the coming elections, Yadav said the BJP should decide that it will not give tickets to its leaders' family members and that it will not ask for votes from the family members.

The SP president also attacked the BJP for the fanfare around its virtual inauguration of the Agra metro by PM Modi, saying that it was the project of his Samajwadi Party originally, while the BJP government only slowed the work and somehow completed it reluctantly.