Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has accused Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath of disrespecting Lord Krishna through alleged remarks about cowherds, and says the BJP will lose the 2027 Assembly elections.
Yadav shared a video clip on X of Adityanath speaking at an Uttarakhand event, where the CM allegedly said Yadav would otherwise be grazing buffaloes in his village of Saifai in Etawah.
Yadav claimed Adityanath has grown fearful of defeat, citing the 2024 Lok Sabha and recent MLC elections.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has pushed back against UP CM Yogi Adityanath's "80-20" claim for the 2027 Assembly polls. On X, he argued it actually means the BJP-led alliance would be confined to no more than 80 seats, while the PDA stands as 20 against the NDA.
Adityanath made the remark in October, after the Rajya Sabha polls. Yadav also used a post on Monday to pledge that, if his party forms the government, Ayodhya will be developed into a global capital for Sanatan pilgrimage, with a probe into alleged land irregularities in the temple town.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav wants Aadhaar linked to voting and fingerprint or iris scans introduced before Uttar Pradesh's 2027 Assembly polls. He says this would stop the BJP from manipulating the vote.
He also wants metal voter cards in place of paper and plastic, since they are harder to forge. The INDIA bloc, meanwhile, has demanded that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign.
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi also criticised the Centre over delimitation and the electoral roll revision, and alleged faulty EVMs.
The BJP has shortlisted 209 candidates for Uttar Pradesh's 403 Assembly seats, with polls due early next year. The list is now with party headquarters in Delhi, awaiting final approval.
The names were picked after talks with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and the party is aiming for more than 300 seats.
Yogi also hinted at a new scheme for women. In an interview, he said Akhilesh Yadav had dropped his demand to withdraw the SIR revision and claimed that 1.27 crore Hindu voter names had been deleted from the rolls.
Akhilesh Yadav, national president of the Samajwadi Party, plans to visit the Ayodhya temple with his family on December 12. It would be his first time there since the January 2024 consecration ceremony.
The family will begin at Hanumangarhi, then go on to see the deity Ram Lalla, with party leader Pawan Pandey joining them. The visit lands a few months before the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly vote.
He had earlier linked the trip to finishing a temple he is building in Etawah, which is in its final stages.
BJP president J.P. Nadda has accused the Congress and Samajwadi Party of trying to weaken trust in the Election Commission. He made the remarks at a rally in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.
He likened Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav to pupils who fault their teachers for weak marks, saying the two only question the poll body after they lose elections.
On the 13 crore names the opposition calls deleted, Nadda said they are absent, shifted, duplicated or dead voters, not a deliberate attempt to strip anyone of their vote.
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