A day before results, Amar slams Rahul, Akhilesh

New Delhi: A day after exit polls predicted a saffron surge in Uttar Pradesh, expelled Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh on Friday bared his fangs and resumed his attack on chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Mr Singh, who was seen to be the major point of conflict between the father-son duo of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav during the tussle for control over the party, blamed the CM’s move to align with the Congress for the expected good showing of the BJP in the state.

He had earlier described Akhilesh Yadav as “Aurangzeb” and Mulayam Singh Yadav as “Shahjahan.” At a hurriedly called national plenary on January 1, the Samajwadi Party expelled Mr Singh from primary membership of the party.

Exit poll predictions on Thursday threw up varied outcomes. It predicted the BJP and SP-Congress alliance will be neck-to-neck in the race with the BJP having an edge.

Mr Singh flayed the Akhilesh Yadav government for corruption and non-development and hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking courageous decisions. He said Mr Modi should thank Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav for his party’s performance in the state. “From ‘donkey’ to ‘terrorist’ to ‘pagal Modi’, filthiest words were used to attack the PM. They (Rahul and Akhilesh) neither had any issue nor any concrete plan for the polls,” he said.

“They talked about Metro rail, which is still to come into existence; they talked about roads that are full of potholes. So Modi isn’t wrong when he says there is no development (in UP),” he said. “Akhilesh had admitted but for the feud with the family that he would never have aligned with the Congress. So this alliance was a compulsion,” he said.