Akhilesh ready for "every sacrifice"

Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav is ready to make "every sacrifice" to ensure the formation of a grand alliance of the Opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh in order to defeat the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

And the SP would not have any problem even if it had to part with additional seats from its quota for accommodating smaller, regional and other Opposition parties in the grand alliance, he said.

"Our main objective is to ensure the defeat of the BJP in the next General Elections... it can be done if the Opposition parties form a grand alliance," Akhilesh said while speaking at a function in Mainpuri, about 300 kilometres from here, on Sunday.

"Our party will remain in the grand alliance even if it has to accommodate other parties... we are ready for every sacrifice to ensure the defeat of the BJP," he said.

Akhilesh said the principal objective of the grand alliance would be to field the nominees who could "defeat" the BJP. "It does not matter if they belong to the SP, BSP, Congress or RLD," he said.

The SP supremo said the results of recently held Lok Sabha bypolls at Kairana, Gorakhpur and Phulpur had dropped enough indication that the BJP was certain to lose heavily in the state.

"Despite a long campaign by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP lost all the Lok Sabha bypolls... the writing is on the wall now," the SP leader said.

The SP and BSP have already indicated that they will contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls in 2019 in alliance. The RLD, Congress and some other smaller regional outfits are also likely to join in.