Double zero for double-engine govt: Akhilesh on BJP's MLC polls showing

• Akhilesh Yadav calls the BJP’s performance in the UP MLC polls a "double defeat".

• The SP chief alleges electoral manipulation and claims the PDA coalition’s support base has expanded to 95 per cent.

• Yadav says the MLC results have laid the foundation for the Samajwadi Party’s return to power in 2027.

Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday, 29 October described the BJP’s performance in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council elections as a 'double defeat', claiming the results had laid the groundwork for his party’s victory in the 2027 Assembly polls.

In a post on X, Yadav said the BJP had lost the Varanasi graduates’ constituency in both the initial counting and recounting, calling it 'double zero for the double engine government'.

The BJP won six of the 11 seats in the biennial elections, while the Samajwadi Party secured five. The results are being seen as a test of the parties’ political standing ahead of the crucial Assembly elections scheduled for 2027.

Yadav said the BJP’s defeat was a rejection of its policies concerning teachers, students and education, adding that "the educated unemployed graduates had also delivered their verdict" against the party.

He said the BJP’s alleged actions, which had caused distress, suffering and humiliation across social groups, had brought together those who felt aggrieved.

The SP chief claimed that the support base of the PDA (pichhde, Dalit, alpsankhyak) social coalition had now expanded to 95 per cent, asserting that "those who are aggrieved are the PDA".

Yadav also alleged irregularities in the constituencies won by the BJP. Claiming that the results had triggered an existential crisis within the BJP, he alleged that everyone knew the party had won through tampering. He added that the BJP’s internal rifts had further intensified tensions between the two engines of the government.

Taking a swipe at the BJP over its preparations for the 2027 Assembly elections, Yadav said the party, which had earlier conducted surveys to identify candidates, was now searching for them with binoculars. "The BJP's ticket window is empty," he said.

Thanking teachers and young voters for supporting Samajwadi Party candidates, Yadav said they had also helped monitor the counting process alongside his party’s "PDA sentinels" and remained present until the election certificates were issued.

He congratulated the winning candidates and also "those who had been defeated through manipulation and fraud".

"None of our candidates has actually lost; they just could not win in the face of the BJP's manipulation," he claimed, adding that the party considered them winners even without certificates.

Yadav said the alertness and unity demonstrated by voters in the MLC elections would lay the "decisive foundation" for the formation of a Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh in 2027.

With PTI inputs