Lucknow: President of the Samajwadi Party (SP) Akhilesh Yadav has said that the Election Commission (EC) was responsible for his party’s defeat in the assembly elections and by-polls in Uttar Pradesh. He tore into the EC saying that it did not hear the voice of the opposition and that the names of a large number of voters were struck off from the electoral rolls.
The former chief minister of UP told journalists that during the Lok Sabha by-elections in Rampur, his party workers were not allowed to vote and, in Azamgarh, the party workers were issued red cards, he said adding that the EC did not pay any heed to the complaints made by the SP. He also said that the political developments were a positive sign and hoped that there might be a viable alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2024 general elections. He also said that the BJP allies were not happy about the way things were going in in UP, so they might snap ties with the ruling party in future.