Akhilesh Yadav avoids question on backing Rahul as PM

Bhopal: Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday avoided a direct reply when asked whether his party would support Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister.

He said that the non-BJP parties were working to stitch an alliance to “replace” Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2019 parliamentary elections.

“The country wants to see a new government at the Centre. People want to see a new Prime Minister. You will see a new Prime Minister after the elections,” he said when asked whether he saw himself or the Congress president as the next Prime Minister.

Asked specifically if his party would support Rahul Gandhi for the Prime Minister’s post — if a non-Bhartiya Janata Party coalition gets the chance to form a government after the 2019 elections — Mr Yadav, speaking at a press conference here, repeated his reply.

He, however, noted that during the recent byelections in Kairana and elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress supported the Samajwadi Party and the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) chief said it was imperative to forge an alliance among the Opposition parties to dislodge PM in the coming Lok Sabha polls.

“Mr Narendra Modi will be replaced (in the 2019 parliamentary polls). Country is going to get a new PM,” Mr Yadav, who was here to explore alliance with the Congress in Madhya Pradesh in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections to be held in 2019, told reporters here.

He also parried a question as to if SP was mulling to enter into alliance with Congress in MP in the upcoming Assembly elections in MP, slated for November this year, saying that SP should expand in MP and fight polls on its own.

Mr Yadav said the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh has failed in all fronts. He said the law and order problem in the state was a cause of concern. Besides, growing incidents of suicides of farmers indicated that the peasants were being ignored by the state government in Madhya Pradesh.

Mr Yadav also alleged large scale corruption in the Madhya Pradesh government particularly citing the Vyapam scandal the shadow of which cast in Uttar Pradesh even.