‘Note bandi’ should be given a befitting reply says Akhilesh Yadav

New Delhi, Apr 25: After keeping the Congress out of his alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday attacked the party over its "big ego" and also accused it of ditching partners and threatening rivals.

"Like the BJP, the Congress too believes in threatening political opponents," he said at an election meeting here.

"We had an alliance with the Congress, but found that their ego is too big," the SP president said.

The SP had an understanding with the Congress during the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. But in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, the SP, the BSP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) kept the Congress out of their alliance in the state.

However, the alliance decided not to field any candidate from Rae Bareli and Amethi, the two Congress bastions held by its leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

"The Congress is not stopping the BJP, it's the SP-BSP alliance which is stopping the BJP," he said.

The SP leader accused the Congress of initiating a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe against his father and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav when it was in power at the Centre.

He claimed that a Congressman was doing this even now.

The apparent reference was to activist Vishwanath Chaturvedi's attempt to revive an old case, alleging amassing of disproportionate assets by him and his father.

Chaturvedi has sought a Supreme Court direction to the CBI to place the status report on a probe in the assets case against Mulayam Singh Yadav and his sons Akhilesh Yadav and Prateek Yadav.

"I want to alert you about the Congress also. It is a party which ditches. Like the BJP, the Congress believes in threatening its political rivals. We don't do politics of threats," Yadav said.

He asked people to give a befitting reply to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s "note bandi" (demonetisation), which he said had ruined the economy, with "vote bandi".