Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh),[India]: A day after he was declared the rightful owner of the Samajwadi Party’s ‘cycle’ symbol, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday rubbished reports suggesting an increasing rift between him and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Silencing all critics, Akhilesh said that he never had any differences with his father and added the main mission at this point of time is to make all efforts to form the government yet again in Uttar Pradesh.
Asserting that 90 percent of the candidates in both candidature lists issued by him and his father are the same, Yadav said, “Relation with my father can never be broken, I never had differences with him.”
The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister also said all in the Samajwadi Party have now zeroed in to work for bringing the party back to power.
“Now, we are concentrating on a bigger responsibility. Now, we are concentrating on forming the government in the state again,” he said.
Akhilesh, however, kept his cards closed on whether the Samajwadi Party would join hands with the Congress for the high-stakes electoral battle.
In a major setback to Mulayam, the Election Commission yesterday recognised the faction led by Akhilesh as the Samajwadi Party and allotted it the ‘cycle’ symbol.
Meanwhile, the poll process for assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh will begin today with notification for the first phase of voting scheduled on February 11.
Seventy three constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh will vote in this phase.
The filing of nominations for these constituencies will start today and the last date for the same will be January 24.
The withdrawal of candidature could be done till January 27 and polling will be on February 11.
The districts going to polls in the first phase are Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.
Uttar Pradesh will have seven-phase polling between February 11 and March 8.
The term of the present government will end on May 27. (ANI)