Prayagraj: Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Friday said ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Samajwadi Party (SP) had allied with various parties but still failed to defeat BJP because it lacked both vision and credible leadership.“The public has absolutely no faith in the Samajwadi Party. Its game of caste-based arithmetic and hollow slogans will once again fall flat,” Maurya said while attending an event in Sangam city.Maurya asserted that no amount of manoeuvring by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav would be able to stop BJP from returning to power for a third consecutive term.“A BJP hat-trick in Uttar Pradesh is certain, and the lotus will bloom once again. The people of the state do not want hooliganism or criminals,” he said.Responding to a question on Election Commission’s interim order barring both factions of Trinamool Congress from using the party’s name and symbol in the by-elections to West Bengal’s Nandigram and Rejinagar constituencies, the deputy chief minister said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who has questioned the EC’s decision, appeared unaware that Trinamool Congress was formed after breaking away from Congress. He added that Congress in West Bengal now exists only in name and not in substance.Later, while interacting with party workers at Circuit House, Maurya urged them to intensify election-related activities. He asked them to aggressively counter the opposition and expose what he described as its “deceitful designs”, saying that while BJP has dedicated workers, the opposition depends on goons.He also exhorted party workers to make ‘Seva Sankalp Abhiyan’ a success.Commenting on a controversial statement by Kaushambi SP leader Indrajit Saroj questioning his practice of applying a tilak, Maurya said he had been applying the tilak of Lord Hanuman even before entering politics, continues to do so, and will continue until his last breath.Senior BJP leaders, including Vivek Mishra, Awadesh Gupta, Sanjay Gupta, Nirmala Paswan and Pawan Srivastava, were present on the occasion.
