Rahul Gandhi today defended his decision to field candidates in Uttar Pradesh against those of Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, reinforcing comments that have landed his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in a controversy. "It is pretty clear that in UP, a secular formation is winning, whether it is the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party or Congress," the Congress president told NDTV in his first television interview in the 2019 national election. Asked about being iced out by the Mayawati-Akhilesh Yadav alliance in India's most politically vital state, Rahul Gandhi said: "You have to ask the SP and BSP. They chose this for strategic reasons."