Third front will form government

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is confident that the third front will form government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha elections.

On his first visit to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Gujarat, he also told journalists that the third front was ready in states like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar as these regional parties would win maximum votes in the polls.

Akhilesh, who heads the Samajwadi Party (SP) government, said the country needed a government that was secular and had a socialist vision, adding that his party was the only party running according to a secular outlook.

Calling the BJP a party of people who had once claimed that idols had started drinking milk, he said that the SP which had once stopped the BJP’s march in UP would do it again this time. “The BJP has grown because of wrong policies of the Congress. Its PM candidate is backed by RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal. I want to tell you that people of UP will stop him (Narendra Modi) from becoming PM,” he said.

Apparently hinting at the Muzaffarnagar riots, the SP leader said: “Some people from here (Gujarat) came to UP and tried to create riots and insult us, but UP has decided that we will stay united and fight these forces. Varanasi will vote for secular people... and it has already proved this by voting in huge numbers in the first phase.”

The SP has fielded 10 candidates in Gujarat which has 26 seats and the UP CM had come to northern Patan town to address a public rally in their support on Monday when local newspapers also carried huge advertisement listing achievements of his administration. “We have just begun in Gujarat and have come to open our account,” said Yadav pitching for a third front at the Centre and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav having a bigger role in it.

Calling Modi an “RSS-backed PM candidate”, Yadav said that a BJP government at the Centre would spoil India’s relations with its neighbours. Rubbishing the Gujarat development model of Modi, he dubbed BJP leaders “chalu” (shrwed) and accused them of resorting to “gimmickry” to spruce up their image in the poll season.

mahesh@khaleejtimes.com

• India