Lucknow, Sep 25 A day after Akhilesh Yadav visited Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai on Friday said people are free to visit any part of the country and that Congress leaders too may visit the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Etawah, Kannauj and Mainpuri over the coming days.
“Anyone is free to visit any part of the country. He (Yadav) visited Raebareli, and there was nothing wrong in it. We too will surely visit places like Varanasi, or for that matter, Etawah, Kannauj and Mainpuri,” Rai told PTI on Friday.
On Thursday, Samajwadi Party chief Yadav boarded a specially designed ‘PDA Rath’, his mount of choice to bounce back from two successive electoral reverses he faced at the hands of the BJP, for a visit to Raebareli.
As part of his campaign for next year’s Uttar Pradesh elections, Yadav is set to travel across the state on the ‘PDA Rath’ to connect with the politically influential ‘Pichhda (backwards), Dalit and Alpsankhyak (minority)’ voters – the social coalition that has become a central plank of the SP’s strategy.
Yadav is the Lok Sabha MP from Kannauj, his wife Dimple is the Mainpuri MP, while his uncle Shivpal is the MLA from the Jaswantnagar Assembly segment in Etawah.
The BJP on Thursday took potshots at Yadav’s Raebareli visit, claiming that it was undertaken to demonstrate SP’s political strength in the constituency and question the Congress’ position there.
“Ideally, the Congress should now begin its political campaign from Kannauj and Mainpuri,” BJP spokesman Rakesh Tripathi had said.
The BJP also recalled how the recent statements by Congress MP Imran Masood and SP MP Iqra Hasan, pitching their respective leaders Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav as the main opposition face, showed that the two opposition parties were involved in a tussle for one-upmanship ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh elections.
Rai on Friday maintained that Rahul Gandhi was the most prominent opposition voice in the country.
He, however, refused to comment on the way Masood and Hasan tried to project their leaders, and said the party leadership would take a final call on the alliance and seat-sharing arrangements.
“There is no denying that Rahul Ji is the most prominent opposition leader capable of taking on the BJP,” Rai said.
“We are the foot soldiers of the Congress, busy ensuring organisational preparedness in the state ahead of the elections. The when, why, whether and what of the alliance (between the Congress and the SP) would be decided by the party leadership,” he said, adding that there were no issues between the two parties over Yadav’s visit to Raebareli aboard his ‘PDA Rath’.
Of the five Assembly seats that make up the Raebareli Lok Sabha constituency, SP holds three – Bachhrawan, Harchandpur and Sareni – while the BJP holds the remaining two – Raebareli and Unchahar.
After the SP and Congress’ impressive showing in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls – when they teamed up to win 43 of 80 seats in the state with SP bagging 37 – all eyes would be on whether they can settle on a seat-sharing agreement for next year’s polls.
The SP’s tally included Faizabad, of which Ayodhya is a part.
The BJP had won 33 seats in India’s most populous state in 2024. Despite its victory in a series of bypolls held since then, including the Milkipur Assembly seat, which is a part of Faizabad, the poll narrative has mostly focused on whether the SP and the Congress can reach a seat-sharing agreement ahead of next year’s polls.
The SP is yet to announce a detailed itinerary for a formal launch of Yadav’s PDA Rath Yatra.
It has maintained that Yadav’s visit to Raebareli on Thursday was to meet the party’s Harchandpur MLA Rahul Lodhi, who alleged that he, along with some SP workers, were manhandled by police following the September 17 clash involving members of the Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
(PTI News)
