Kolkata: Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday met his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee at her Kalighat residence here on Saturday and said he would support Trinamool Congress and other parties fighting for secularism in the country.
Akhilesh, who was in the city to attend the eighth state conference of his party, discussed with Mamata bringing all opposition parties together for an anti-BJP front before the 2019 election. He also raised the issue of EVM malfunctioning and challenged the BJP to use ballot papers in the next general election, just hours after Mayawati made a similar demand.
His meeting with Mamata assumes significance as she had singled out the SP chief to take on the BJP with a ‘United Front’ in August after Nitish Kumar ended his coalition with Lalu Prasad Yadav and formed a new one with the BJP. At the time, she had said a new front would take shape in six months.
However, Akhilesh, dismissed it as a mere “courtesy call”. “Didi is fighting a secular battle and we from the Samajwadi Party are with her in this battle,” he told reporters.
In an attack on the BJP, he said that the party had become an “expert in telling lies”. “They tell lies in such a manner that people have started believing them. The BJP has lied to the people in the name of demonetisation, in the name of GST, in the name of digital India, in the name of Make in India," he alleged.
When asked about the UP civic poll results, he said it seems they could be tampered. “Today, I am forced to say there are some issue with the EVMs. There should be a thorough investigation. Today, everybody noticed that BJP won wherever EVMs were used and SP won wherever ballot papers were used. Why has this happened? This cannot be a coincidence.”
He also shared the “crucial poll statistic” that BJP’s winning percentage was 46 % wherever polls were conducted through EVMs and 15 % where it was done via ballot papers. However, he did not share where he got this statistic from.
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