Hitting out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday alleged that despite adopting all kinds malpractices, the BJP suffered “a miserable defeat in seats just outside the cities” in just concluded urban local body elections in Uttar Pradesh.
He also said the SP would have had performed even better had “the BJP played fair without using cheating, money-power and misuse of government machinery”.
Akhilesh Yadav said this in a tweet and then in a statement issued by the party in the evening— a day after the ULB elections results were declared. The SP chief congratulated all party candidates who won the civic elections and also those who defeated their BJP rivals.
He also hit out at the state election commission (SEC) saying that it was sad that despite being responsible for holding free and fair polls, the SEC’s role in the election remained “suspicious”.
Akhilesh said the SP, after noticing the misuse of power and government machinery and victimisation of opposition workers and leaders in the first phase of the polls, had demanded the SEC to make better arrangements but it chose to stay a mute spectator even when opposition’s voice was being suppressed during the “suspicious” counting process.
“The truth is that the BJP won the urban local body polls by malpractices and dishonest counting. This so-called victory of the BJP is betrayal of democracy and the Constitution and an insult of the public mandate”, the SP chief said in the statement.