Samajwadi Party and Jayant Chaudhary's RLD have formed alliance ahead of Lok Sabha polls.
Amid speculation that RLD's Jayant Chaudhary may join hands with the BJP, senior Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav on Wednesday accused the saffron party of "creating confusion" and said the former will remain with the INDIA bloc.
Echoing similar sentiments, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said he hopes that Jayant Chaudhary will not weaken the struggle going on for the 'khushali' (prosperity) of Uttar Pradesh.
"The BJP is doing the work of creating confusion. He (Jayant) is not going anywhere. He will remain with the INDIA bloc with full strength and will do the work of defeating the BJP," Shivpal Yadav told reporters when asked about the speculation regarding the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) going to the BJP-led NDA ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
The Samajwadi Party national general secretary said Jayant Chaudhary will remain with the INDIA bloc and defeat the BJP in the general elections.
"I know Jayant, he is a secular person," he added.
When asked to comment on the matter, the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief said, "He (Jayant) is very 'suljhe hue' (clear) and very well educated person. He understands politics." " I hope the struggle going on for the welfare of the farmers and prosperity of the state will not be weakened by him," he told reporters at Vidhan Bhawan.
The RLD and the SP announced their alliance for the Lok Sabha polls on January 19 with the former stating that the latter will leave seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh for its nominees.
The SP president and the RLD chief announced the tie-up on social media for the general elections later this year.
"Congratulations to everyone on the alliance of RLD and SP. Let us all unite for victory," Yadav had said in a post on X.
Reposting this tweet, Chaudhary had said, "Always ready to protect national and constitutional values. We expect all workers of our alliance to move forward together for the development and prosperity of our region." He also posted pictures of the two leaders shaking hands.
The RLD's core vote bank has been the Jat population. The Lok Sabha constituencies where there is maximum Jat population are Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Bijnor, Mathura, Baghpat, Amroha and Meerut. These could be the seats on which the RLD is likely to contest.
Both the parties had contested the 2022 assembly elections in an alliance as well in which the SP had won 111 seats while the RLD bagged 8 seats.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls also, the RLD was part of the SP-BSP alliance. The RLD had got Mathura, Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar seats but it lost on all the three seats while the SP and the BSP had won 5 seats and 10 seats, respectively.
Though the RLD did not have enough strength to send Chaudhary to the Rajya Sabha, the SP supported him in his election.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)