SP's performance in UP bypolls to be better than LS elections: Akhilesh Yadav

Lucknow: The Samajwadi Party's performance in the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh will be better than that of the Lok Sabha elections, its chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Wednesday.

The Election Commission is yet to announce the schedule for the bypolls to 10 assembly seats in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh.

"We will have a better outcome in the upcoming by-elections than the Lok Sabha polls," Yadav said while talking to reporters at the Samajwadi Party's (SP) headquarters here.

In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the SP won 37 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, up from five in 2019. The BJP was got 33 seats, down from 62.

Claiming that there was "infighting in the BJP in Uttar Pradesh", Yadav said, "Because of a fight for power, the people are suffering." Of the 10 assembly seats in the state were bypoll is due, nine fell vacant after the MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha in the recent polls. The Sismau assembly seat fell vacant following SP MLA Irfan Solanki’s disqualification after he was sentenced to a seven-year jail term in an arson case.

Vijay Bahadur, a former Zila Panchayat chairman, joined the SP on Wednesday and he was welcomed into the party by Yadav.

"In our recent call to save the Constitution, he (Bahadur) and his friends have been helping us on the ground to strengthen the fight of the PDA (picchde, dalits and alpsankhyak)," Yadav said.