Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said followers of Dalit icon Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar should join the party's effort to oust the BJP from power so that democracy could be saved and people's right protected. Yadav said this during a joint press conference with Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Jayant Chaudhary when asked about BSP leader Mayawati, whose party had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP).

“I’ve always said that Ambedkarwadis should join Samajwadis, because we’ve to save the Constitution and democracy…. I appeal again to Ambedkarwadis to join us,” he said.

The Yadav scion's open invitation to the BSP supremo assumes great significance because if SP and BSP come together, then the Yadav-Dalit combination can prove to be a threat to the Yogi Adityanath-powered BJP in Uttar Pradesh polls 2022.

While SP enjoys the support of Yadav and Muslims, Mayawati has a stronghold among her core Jatav (Dalit) voters.

Talking about Noida, he said, “There is a superstition that the chief minister who goes to Noida loses the election, but there is also a belief that the one who goes to Noida also forms the government. I started a cycle journey from Noida in 2011 and formed the government (in 2012). I am going there again because in the coming time, we have to form a government.”

Yadav also mocked Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who in a recent statement said he will "cool down" those hotting up passions after March 10, the date when results of the state Assembly polls will be declared.

"He is our CM and not any compressor that he will cool us down," Yadav said, adding that the chief minister didn't know what he was saying.