"Tejashwi Yadav Will Form Next Bihar Government": Akhilesh Yadav

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said the Election Commission, which has ordered special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, has itself been subjected to "SIR" by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's 'Voter Adhikar Yatra'.

The former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister made the remark at Patna airport before boarding his return flight.

"The 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' has done an SIR of the Election Commission itself. The EC had been busy making things easy (jugaad) for the BJP, but despite that, the party seems poised for a defeat in the  Bihar assembly polls", he added.

Earlier, the UP strongman participated in the Yatra in Saran, addressed a rally with Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in Arrah, and later met Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad at his Patna residence.

Talking to reporters outside Prasad's house, Mr Yadav said, "I am confident that Tejashwi will form the next government in Bihar. I may not be in power at present, but I will try to help him by sharing my experiences".

To a question on BJP's charge that the INDIA bloc was trying to protect "infiltrators" by opposing SIR, the SP chief shot back, "In our state, we have an immigrant (pravaasi) as the chief minister".

The reference was to Yogi Adityanath, who was born in Uttarakhand, before the hill state was carved out of UP, and had settled down in Gorakhpur, where he became the head of a major Hindu shrine.

Tejashwi Yadav, who stood by the side of the Samajwadi Party leader, pointed out, "Not a single infiltrator has been shown in the electoral rolls by the EC. On the other hand, BJP leader Bhikhubhai Dalsania has been included in the voters' list here, though he hails from Gujarat".

Mr Yadav also slammed the Narendra Modi government at the Centre over the steep hike in tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration.

He also sought "a complete halt" on trade relations with China, raising up the 1962 war and other disputes with the neighbouring country.

Dismissing the controversy over abuse hurled at the PM during the Yatra two days ago, Mr Yadav said, "Nobody condones such behaviour, but the BJP is raising the issue to divert public attention. Beware, it is a party that uses people and then destroys them".

Earlier, at the Arrah rally, he took a veiled dig at RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's claim that the people of India have had the same DNA for 40,000 years.

"We have been saying that our fight for social justice is 5,000 years old. But only recently we got to learn that it dates back to 40,000 years," said Mr Yadav, tongue in cheek.

"So, we must pull up our socks. We speak about 5,000 years of social inequality. But they (BJP-RSS) assert that the existing order is 40,000 years old. In last year's Lok Sabha polls, the BJP was beaten in Awadh (UP). It is now time to drive them out from Magadh (Bihar)," said Mr Yadav.

Bhagwat had made the statement at a function held to celebrate the centenary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) earlier this week, when he also asserted everyone in Akhand Bharat is a Hindu.

Mr Yadav also made a mention of the chariot (rath) being stopped in Bihar, a clear allusion to the 1990 arrest of BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani at Samastipur, which halted the Ram Rath Yatra. This incident, however, also marked the beginning of a fierce rivalry between RJD's then-chief minister Lalu Prasad and Uttar Pradesh's Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of the Samajwadi Party.

The SP supremo, however, backed Prasad's son and heir apparent to the hilt, saying, "We will cooperate fully with Tejashwi Yadav in the upcoming assembly polls. May he form the next government and take Bihar on the path to progress." "Tejashwi has been promising jobs to Bihar's youth, which would put an end to forced migration. Let him win the assembly polls, and it would be the turn of the BJP to migrate from the state," said Mr Yadav.

The SP leader also charged the Narendra Modi government at the Centre with trying to intimidate us but getting scared of (US President Donald) Trump in the wake of the steep hike in tariffs imposed by the US administration.

"It seems the tariffs have been slapped on the mouths of the BJP as well," chuckled the SP president, who also claimed they had promised to double the income of farmers. "But, in reality, the farmers of the country have been ruined," he said. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)