Farmers Movement Archive

Will win UP elections next year, says SP chief Akhilesh Yadav

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said on Thursday that his party will win the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections next year with a big margin and then will work on abolishing voting through electronic voting machines (EVMs). Predicting his party’s victory on 350 seats in the assembly elections, Yadav said no one trusted the EVMs. At a training camp for party workers in Jhansi, Yadav said that even in a country like the United States, the presidential elections were held through ballot papers and the counting lasted for several days. Also Read | Budget passed in UP Assembly; House adjourned sine die“Everyone trusts voting through ballots but it cannot be brought back as of now. We will win UP first and then Samajwadi people will be the first to discard the EVMs,” he told reporters. He did not elaborate on how his party would convince the election commission on the issue.Yadav said the farmers did not want the three farm laws, yet the Central government was adamant on enforcing them. “The farmers will become labourers on their own fields,” he said, adding that the laws were passed forcibly in Rajya Sabha where the BJP did not enjoy a majority. He alleged that the BJP government forcibly passed the farm laws in the Rajya Sabha despite the fact that it did not have majority there. “BJP wants to kill democracy. In UP also, in the legislative council, where the SP has majority, the government ignored it and got the bills passed there,” he said.Akhilesh said the contest in UP elections would not be as close as in Bihar, but one sided. The grand alliance was set to form the government but the BJP did not allow this to happen. In UP, he said, the BJP would face a debacle. “SP will win 350 seats,” he said.

Hindustan Times

05-03-2021

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