Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said that he has not received any invitation to join Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra and compared the Mallikarjun Kharge-led outfit to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Our party’s principles are different,” he said in response to a question at a press conference on whether he would take part in the march led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. “The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress are one and the same.”
Yadav also told a journalist who asked him about the Bharat Jodo Yatra: “If you have an invitation on your phone, please send it to me at once.”
The Samajwadi Party had allied with the Congress ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. However, the two parties did not continue their alliance in the 2022 Assembly polls.
The Congress has said that the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which began from Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7, is aimed at countering the politics of hatred espoused by the BJP. The march is currently on a break in Delhi and will resume on January 3.
Several Opposition leaders, including MK Stalin from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Aaditya Thackeray from the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and Kamal Haasan from the Makkal Needhi Maiam, have joined the march for brief periods of time.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Ministers Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah will also join the march in its final leg.
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