If need be, will sacrifice some seats for BSP: SP chief Akhilesh

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said today his party was prepared to walk the extra mile to defeat the BJP and was willing to sacrifice some seats for once bitter arch-rival, the BSP.

"If there is a need to sacrifice a few seats for the BSP, we Samajwadis will not hesitate. We have to ensure the BJP is defeated," he said in Mainpuri.

He asserted the understanding between the SP and the BSP will continue till 2019.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister's statement ahead of the Lok Sabha elections next year assumes significance as the understanding between the two regional outfits has ensured BJP's defeat in four bypolls in the state this year.

Among the seats the BJP lost was the Lok Sabha seat of Gorakhpur, considered to be Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath bastion. The ruling saffron party was also humbled in Phulpur and Kairana Lok Sabha seats besides the Noorpur Assembly seat recently due to coming together of the opposition parties including the RLD.

BSP chief Mayawati has made clear her party would be a part of the opposition alliance only if given a respectable number of seats in the pre-election pact.

Yadav claimed the SP-BSP bonhomie was troubling the BJP.

"Now the BJP's worry is that how both (SP and BSP) will accomplish this task (of defeating the ruling party). They will see how our (SP) workers stand by them (BSP) and support them to demolish the BJP," he said at a event late evening yesterday expressing confidence the understanding between the two parties would last till 2019.

Senior UP minister Swami Prasad Maurya has earlier remarked that the friendship between the two parties "will not last long and end before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections".

"The SP and the BSP will perish fighting each other. This electoral understanding is not based on issues and any electoral understanding sans any issue is not going to last long," he had told reporters in Ballia yesterday.