Akhilesh Yadav to join Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra on February 25

Akhilesh Yadav to join Congress' Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Agra on February 25, boosting Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Thursday announced that its national president Akhilesh Yadav will join the Congress party’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra at Agra on February 25.

“Congress leaders came with an invitation from their party president for our national president, Akhilesh Yadav Ji, to join the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. We have accepted the invitation, and our president will participate on February 25 in Agra,” SP chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told The Hindu. The SP announcement comes a day after the SP-Congress seat sharing agreement for U.P. was finalised. The Congress is fighting 17 seats while the SP will contest the remaining 63 seats.

The SP president chose not to join the Yatra in Amethi or Rae Bareli. He said his party would join the Yatra after the finalisation of seat-sharing for Uttar Pradesh. “Right now, talks are on, many rounds of talks have happened and lists of candidates have been exchanged. The moment, seat distribution is finalised, the Samajwadi Party will join their Nyay Yatra,” Mr. Yadav told reporters on February 19. 

The SP added, the Yatra in U.P. will work well with the social justice and the PDA (Pichda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak) plank of the U.P. based party. “Together we will make sure that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) loses all the 80 seats in U.P. In 2014 and 2019, it was success in the state that helped the BJP form a government at the Centre,” added Mr. Chaudhary.