On the last day of canvassing for the first phase of India's Lok Sabha elections, senior Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav shared the stage to display the unity of their alliance and said both parties have a common agenda of defeating the BJP.
In response to a question, while addressing the media in Ghaziabad, about contesting only 17 out of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Rahul Gandhi said, "We have decided the INDIA alliance will contest and we have done seat-sharing with an open mind. We want to show some flexibility. That is why we have given space to our partners but that should not be seen as any weakness of the Congress."
Akhilesh said the INDIA alliance will defeat the BJP from Ghaziabad to Ghazipur. In Ghaziabad, the Congress is contesting with the support of the SP. Without predicting the number of seats which the Congress would win, Rahul said the BJP will be restricted to 150 seats in the Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Gandhi said the biggest issues in the Lok Sabha election 2024 are unemployment, inflation, and representation but the Bharatiya Janata Party tries to distract from these issues.
On the BJP's question about how poverty will be eradicated in one go, Gandhi said, "No one is saying that poverty will be finished in one go. We are saying that poverty can be given a big blow. Narendra Modi has kept his entire focus on 22 to 25 individuals.
Targeting the BJP over the electoral bond scheme, Yadav said that the electoral bond has exposed the BJP and the BJP has become a godown of all corrupts. Calling electoral bonds the world's biggest scheme of extortion, Rahul said all the explanations of the PM on the scheme were not going to make any difference. "Because the entire nation knows that the Prime Minister is a champion of corruption," he said.
