Akhilesh in Kolkata, says main target is to oust BJP in 2024

Kolkata, March 17 (IANS) The one and only target of Samajwadi Party is to oust BJP from power in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at any cost, the party chief and the leader of opposition in Uttar Pradesh Assembly Akhilesh Yadav said after arriving here on Friday.

He will first be attending a meeting of the national working committee of his party at a hotel in Kolkata. Thereafter at around 5 p.m. he will have a meeting with CM Mamata Banerjee at her residence in South Kolkata.

"I will be meeting with the Chief Minister of West Bengal this afternoon. It is not possible to say right now what will be the outcome of the discussion. The Union government is not ready to discuss burning issues like inflation, unemployment and farmers' plight. Instead, the Union government wants to harass the opposition parties through central agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate," Akhilesh Yadav told media persons after at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose international airport on Friday afternoon.

Commenting on the recent enhanced activities of central agencies in West Bengal, Yadav said that the number of leaders in jail in West Bengal is far less than the number in Uttar Pradesh. "In Uttar Pradesh, there are so many elected legislators and leaders of Samajwadi Party who are languishing behind the bars after being falsely implicated. The Union government and BJP are unleashing the central agencies against any opposition party or leaders whom they feel threatened about," he said.

However, he did not want to give any direct answer to the question from the media persons about what would be the nature of the opposition alliance, the outline for which might be drawn in his meeting with Mamata Banerjee. "For the media, the question might be the opposition alliance. But the real issue is that the people of India want BJP to be out of power," he said.