Upbeat Akhilesh: BJP losing wicket after wicket

SP president inducts 2 former BJP ministers, 6 MLAs who deserted sa ron fold, into his party.

Lucknow: Akhilesh Yadav on Friday taunted the BJP for losing “one wicket after the other” and not fathoming the SP strategy as he inducted two ministers and six other MLAs who recently deserted the ruling alliance into his Samajwadi Party (SP).

Apart from the six BJP MLAs – mostly from the Other Backward Classes – a legislator from BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) also joined the SP at a large public meeting in the compound of the party office here, defying Covid norms.

An official said the local administration is investigating the “violation”.

The Election Commission has banned election meetings till January 15. In apparent deference to the EC order, the meeting was called a “virtual rally” and a “press conference”, going by the banner behind the dais.

“The BJP wickets are falling one after the other. Our ‘baba’ CM doesn’t know how to play cricket. Even if he knew, he has dropped the catch,” the SP president commented on Yogi Adityanath, the face of the ruling party in the UP polls. Yadav also mocked the chief minister over his “80 versus 20” remark, suggesting that Adityanath should get himself a math teacher.

The CM had recently said 80 per cent of the voters will be on the BJP’s side and the remaining 20 percent against it in next month’s assembly polls, a jibe that many thought alluded to the Muslim proportion of the state’s population.

The SP leader said the real proportion of those with the two rivals was just the opposite.

And after the entry of Swami Prasad Maurya and the others in the SP, the BJP would lose even this 20 percent, Yadav said after conferring the party membership to the OBC leader who resigned from the Adityanath cabinet earlier this week.

Maurya too referred to the 80- 20 remark. “Now it will be 15 and 85. Eighty-five is ours, there will be divisions in the 15 as well,” he said. — (PTI)