Lucknow: Pointing fingers at the BJP govt for ‘fake hoardings’ about Congress party seeking 200 seats as its share in UP polls, Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday said the move has only established the extent of unease within the saffron brigade over the coming together of the INDIA bloc for the 2027 assembly elections in the state.
“The BJP is so frightened by the coming together of the INDIA bloc (for the UP polls) that they have put out fake hoarding,” Akhilesh said in a social media post attaching photographs of hoardings that have come up in different parts of the state on Sunday.
The hoarding states that Congress party was entitled to over 200 seats in UP as an alliance partner of the SP for the 2027 elections to 403 assembly seats in the state. Earlier reporting noted: 2027 UP polls: Mystery posters on seat sharing surface, SP-Cong call it BJP’s ploy As the Congress pitches for a three-digit share in the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls and groundwork for seat-sharing talks with the Samajwadi Party (SP) gains pace, a poster has added a new twist to the emerging alliance negotiations. The slogan projecting a 200-seat claim has brought the Congress’s seat-sharing ambitions into sharper focus even before formal negotiations between the alliance partners begin.
Because of corruption or pressure from the govt, the former UP CM said this was either.
Akhilesh said that the party was keeping a date-wise record of all such incidents along with names of the officials under whom such incidents were taking place. “The backhand dealings of all such officers will be exposed after the PDA is voted to form the govt in 2027,” Akhilesh said, adding that agencies right from ED and CBI to EOW would be deployed to probe threadbare the conduct of all such officials. He said municipal officers should be suspended for allowing fake hoardings to come up on govt property without permission and payment of the relevant fee. “No action is being initiated against such officers,” he said. Earlier reporting noted: The posters carrying photographs of Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, UP Congress chief Aradhana Mishra, state in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam and working president Imran Masood with “200 seat haq hai hamara, UP ko hai Rahul Gandhi par bharosa” (200 seats are our right; UP trusts Rahul Gandhi) written on them were seen in Lucknow, including one in Gomti Nagar, and Rae Bareli on Sunday, triggering allegations and counterattacks between the BJP and INDIA bloc leaders. Earlier reporting noted: Both the SP and the Congress alleged that it was a “proxy” ploy by the BJP as “it was scared” and an “attempt to sabotage the alliance”.
Political observers feel that such ‘covert’ tactics may actually help the INDIA bloc partners understand the importance of their ‘coming together come what may’ for the UP polls and give the Congress and SP a strong reason to shun their differences over seat sharing and join hands to take on the BJP in the assembly polls.