Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati to hold joint presser Saturday

Lucknow, Jan 11 Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati will address a joint press meet here Saturday, in the midst of discusses seat sharing for Lok Sabha polls from which the Congress is by all accounts practically out.

The joint press conference at a posh hotel here was declared Friday by SP national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary and Bahujan Samaj Party national general secretary SC Misra.

The best initiative of both the gatherings had met in New Delhi as of late to examine wide parameters of a collusion to go up against the BJP unitedly in the Lok Sabha races.

The joint press conference will be the first after the parties gave forms of an appointive partnership in front of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The two party chiefs had given their "in principle" approval to the alliance, which has for all intents and purposes close its ways to the Congress in the state.

Sources said that both the SP and the BSP are intending to challenge on 37 seats each out of the 80 on offer in Uttar Pradesh and plan to leave only two, Rae Bareli and Amethi, the bastions of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for the Congress.

Smaller parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the Nishad Party are also likely to be in the union. In the 2014 Lok Sabha races, the BJP and its partners had won 73 of the 80 seats in UP.

Congress leaders like PL Punia, who conveyed Chhattisgarh to the Congress as its state in-control, and UPCC chief Raj Babbar are allegedly of the view that the Congress ought not "be timid in partnership arrangements any more" and should look for its pound of tissue.

They refer to the case of 2009 when the Congress cavorted home with 22 Lok Sabha seats in UP, surprising many prophets of doom.

They also say that with party chief Rahul Gandhi getting more "confrontational, direct and effective" in taking on the Modi juggernaut, the Congress stood better possibilities in going alone.

Throughout the week, Yadav and Mayawati likewise put out press articulations that explicitly alluded to "gathbandhan".

Mayawati's press statement was in solidarity with Yadav in the midst of reports that the CBI may address him on examinations concerning a mining trick that supposedly occurred when he was boss minister. "Try not to be shaken," she prompted him.

Yadav returned the favour when he put out an official statement to censure Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments at a rally in Agra on Mayawati, "forgetting" an attack on her by Samajwadi Party workersin 1995 for "political gains". "The PM is terrified of the coalition," said Yadav.

In Agra, Modi looked to drive a wedge between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party when he said that the two parties which couldn't see eye to eye were holding hands.

A year ago, Yadav and Mayawati chose to cover their disparities and pool in their assets to challenge three bypolls and won all. It gave them trust that on the off chance that they collaborate, they can pull voters from the BJP.

The mahagathbandhan arithmetic had worked in the bypolls as a consolidation of OBC, Dalit and Muslim votes controlled joint opposition candidates to victory in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana last year.

If they attempt to replicate their success in the 2019 national polls, it may upset the apple cart of the BJP, which as of late lost three major state elections, feel investigators.

A senior BJP leader, when reached, tried to play down the SP-BSP tie-up as "shrewd" governmental issues and communicated certainty that the saffron party will turn out without a hitch on the board of development as it trusted in 'sab ka saath, sab ka vikas'.