There was plan to project Adityanath as PM candidate during Maha Kumbh: Akhilesh Yadav

Prayagraj: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday suggested that there was a plan to project Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as a prime ministerial candidate during the recently held Maha Kumbh and alleged that the BJP leader made it a political event. "They wanted to turn it into a political Kumbh, not a religious one. It was not a Kumbh for devotees, but for political purposes," Yadav told reporters here.

"It is being heard that during the Maha Kumbh, there was a plan to announce his (Adityanath's) name as the prime ministerial face," the former chief minister said.

He also alleged severe mismanagement in the organisation of the Maha Kumbh 2025 here.


"Have you ever seen TV channels being given interviews during a Kumbh? Such arrangements were made here. This entire mismanagement has caused a major blot on the organisation of the event," he claimed.

"In the future, you will understand even better. Many things might not reach me, but you live here - you know the truth," Yadav said.

The SP chief also said that the opposition INDIA bloc will continue in the 2027 UP Assembly elections.

He attacked the BJP, alleging it was trying to grab land like the mafia through the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.

Yadav said that the "PDA (Backward, Dalits, and Minorities) would uproot the BJP" from the state in the 2027 assembly elections.

When asked about the INDIA bloc, he reiterated, "INDIA alliance is (present) and will remain", dispelling doubts about the fate of the alliance formed ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.

"The BJP has brought the Waqf Amendment Bill so that it can snatch away land. Wherever they see land, they occupy it," he said and called the BJP "land mafia party".

He accused the ruling party of "snatching" people's money through demonetisation and GST and of diminishing reservation rights.

Yadav also promised an investigation into "mismanagement" in the Maha Kumbh, if his party comes to power in 2027 elections.

The SP chief claimed the government provided inaccurate figures regarding casualties and financial gains during the event, and alleged that drones and CCTV surveillance failed during the January stampede.

"When drones and CCTVs were needed the most (at the time of the stampede), they were either closed or were shut down," he claimed.

Yadav also accused the government of pressuring the relatives of stampede victims to change the cause of death.

Regarding SP MP Ramji Lal Suman's controversial statement on Rana Sanga, Yadav said, "The history which shows each other as superior and inferior, the history which stops our progress, that history should be allowed to remain."

Yadav provided journalists with a booklet of his suggestions for the Prayagraj Maha Kumbh 2025, originally posted on social media, and a Harvard University study on the 2013 Prayagraj Kumbh Mela.

He was in Prayagraj to attend the wedding of SP state president Shyam Lal Pal's daughter.