Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance will be defeated in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections by the ‘PDA’ (Picchde, Dalit Alpsankhyak).

Yadav said the “bicycle people” would win the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and that the PDA would defeat the BJP-led NDA. 

Bicycle is the election symbol of SP.

“The BJP will be defeated in all 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh if the bigger national parties back us,” Yadav said in Azamgarh, his former Lok Sabha constituency, on Friday.

Yadav asserted that he has always maintained that seat distribution should be decided considering which alliance partner is the strongest in a particular state.

He reiterated his demand for caste census, saying, “Several other parties are now supporting the demand for a caste census. Caste census is necessary for social justice to give due representation to various castes in reservation.”

Asked about his view on efforts being made to include the Bahujan Samaj Party in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the SP chief said that his only slogan was ‘Assi harao, BJP hatao’.

UP has 80 Lok Sabha seats. The SP had won only five in 2019 and lost two of them – Rampur and Azamgarh – to the BJP in the by-elections.

Talking about his party’s alliance with Congress and BSP in the 2017 UP assembly and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections respectively, Yadav asserted that the SP has always been an honest and accommodating alliance partner.

“Wherever the SP has been in alliance, you wouldn’t hear us fighting over seats," he said.

Yadav also hit out at the BJP government in UP and alleged that it had failed to bring development while the law and order situation had deteriorated.