New Delhi: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday, December 29, said he had not received any formal invitation from the Congress party to join the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, which will enter Uttar Pradesh on January 3.
In effect, Yadav and his party will not take part in the yatra, which had earlier seen the participation of non-BJP parties in some states, inspiring a certain level of opposition unity against the BJP.
Speaking to the media in Lucknow on Thursday, the Samajwadi Party chief said, “Our emotions are with their yatra (but) I have not got any invitation for it.”
Earlier, the Congress, however, claimed that it had invited leaders of several non-BJP parties, including Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary, to take part in the Uttar Pradesh leg of the yatra.
During the press conference, Yadav, in a lighter vein, asked a reporter, who was asking questions on the Uttar Pradesh leg of Rahul Gandhi’s march, to pass on the invitation if she had it in her phone.
“The principle of our party is different – the BJP and the Congress are one,” Yadav said at the press conference. Yadav, however, did not elaborate on his comment clubbing the BJP and the Congress in the same bracket.
The yatra, a mass contact initiative of the Congress, started from Kanyakumari on September 7 and covered Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi in the first phase.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which is currently on a winter break, will resume its journey from Delhi on January 3 and enter Uttar Pradesh.
Also read: Can Bharat Jodo Yatra Give a New Lease of Life to Rahul Gandhi?
Rajendra Chaudhary, a spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party, had earlier said that Yadav was unlikely to take part in the yatra due to his “preoccupation” with party programmes.
There has also been no discussion in the party on the yatra, Chaudhary had said when asked if any other party leader would take part.
RLD chief Chaudhary is also unlikely to take part.
Anil Dubey, the party’s chief spokesperson, said, “I do not think that Jayant ji will be going for the yatra. He is preoccupied with party programmes that have already been planned.”
The Samajwadi Party, which had contested the 2017 assembly elections in the state in alliance with the Congress, has since then maintained a distance from the party.
It is the main opposition in Uttar Pradesh, which sends a maximum of 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha, and Yadav’s absence from the yatra is seen as a setback to the Congress’s efforts to bring anti-BJP parties together.
The Samajwadi Party had joined hands with the BSP in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 General Elections and contested this year’s assembly polls in the politically significant state with the RLD and some regional outfits.
The Congress had contested both the 2019 General Elections and the 2022 assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh on its own.
In 2019, even Gandhi suffered defeat at the hands of Smriti Irani from the family bastion of Amethi, with only Sonia Gandhi managing to hold on to her Rae Bareli seat.
In the 2022 assembly polls, the Congress’s seat plummeted to two in the 403-member House, down from nine in 2017.
The SP won 111 seats and Yadav became the leader of the Opposition in the House.
(With PTI inputs)