Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav took a potshot at the Uttar Pradesh government over “mafia”, a day after Mamata Banerjee performed the act of doing ‘laundry’ - where she puts in a ‘black cloth’ in a dummy washing machine and pulls out a ‘white cloth’.
Akhilesh Yadav’s comments came a day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from the Lok Sabha after being convicted by a Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case.
With a year to go for the 2024 general election, regional parties are trying to forge a common platform. But internal contradictions, the Congress’s weaknesses and the BJP’s formidable machinery remain hurdles