Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party will join forces for the 2019 elections, Akhilesh Yadav told NDTV in Lucknow. "Based on our conversation, both our parties will together fight elections in 2019", the 44-year-old president of the Samajwadi Party, or SP, said. Speculation has been rife whether the two former arch rivals - who came together for last month's bypolls to produce a shock defeat for the ruling BJP - will be able to sustain their formidable alliance until the Lok Sabha elections.