SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to support Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal Assembly polls

'BJP has started inciting communal hatred in West Bengal...we do not want BJP to win there and so we have decided to support the TMC,' Akhilesh said

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said that his party would support Trinamool Congress in the next year's Assembly polls in West Bengal.

Speaking to reporters in his Lok Sabha constituency of Azamgarh, about 300 km from here, Akhilesh accused the BJP of trying to 'polarise' the voters in West Bengal to gain electoral mileage in the polls. "BJP has started inciting communal hatred in West Bengal...we do not want BJP to win there and so we have decided to support the TMC," he said.

Although the SP did not have a large support base in Bengal, the party had pockets of influence, specially among the people from Uttar Pradesh. A large population of migrants from UP lives in Kolkata and some other districts in West Bengal.

It was not yet clear if Akhilesh would also be campaigning in West Bengal in support of TMC in the polls. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC president Mamata Banerjee was locked in a fierce electoral contest with the BJP.

Akhilesh also sought to corner the BJP government at the centre and in the state for ignoring the 'genuine' demands of the agitating farmers and said that the saffron party would have to bear the consequences in the Assembly polls in UP, which was due in less than two year's time.

He also made it clear that his party would not have any truck with bigger national parties though the SP could have electoral alliance with smaller outfits.