A day after BSP supremo Mayawati buried the hatchet with SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav by sharing dais at Mainpuri, she took the newfound solidarity forward at Rampur on Saturday. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister held a joint rally with SP chief and Mulayam's son Akhilesh Yadav, seeking votes for senior SP leader Mohammed Azam Khan, who recently courted controversy for derogatory remarks against BJP's Jaya Prada. The SP leader who is notorious for taking impolite jibes at rivals, however, pleaded innocence at the rally, claiming that he was being hounded like a terrorist. The BSP chief and the SP patriarch Mulayam Singh were seen in one frame on Saturday at joint SP-BSP rally, ending decades of political acrimony and personal bitterness. Mayawati waxed eloquent while seeking votes for Mulayam whom she hailed as the "real and true leader".

Source: dna April 21, 2019 00:00 UTC