Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Saturday that he is trying to clean “pollution in politics”.

“I am now cleaning up the pollution that has spread in politics. I have started this from Uttar Pradesh. I am cleaning up the pollution that the BJP has given with the slogan of the Britishers,” he told Sumit Awasthi, consulting editor, NDTV.

Talking about BJP’s ‘batenge to katenge’ slogan, Akhilesh Yadav said the people of India will never accept it. He claimed some leaders within the BJP don’t agree with the slogan.

“If we look at the history of democracy in the world and India’s history, no party has sent out so much negativity. The public will never accept this. Some people in their party do not agree with this,” he added.

He attributed the BJP’s dismal Lok Sabha election performance in Uttar Pradesh to “negativity”.

“These people (BJP) are against tribals, minorities and half the population. These people are negative and this is the reason why in this election our PDA prevailed over their NDA,” he said.

Yadav claimed the INDIA bloc would have won 55-60 seats in the state had the BJP not “cheated”.

“If the BJP had not cheated, the India alliance would have won 55-60 seats in Uttar Pradesh. This time the public had made up its mind to vote against BJP,” he said.

Akhilesh Yadav said the BJP lost the Ayodhya Lok Sabha election because of their negative thinking.

“BJP lost Ayodhya because of the negative thinking of our chief minister (Yogi Adityanath) and the BJP. This government did not take forward any work done by the socialists; instead, it made electricity expensive for the people,” he said.

“PDA is a slogan for positive politics, togetherness and it is about giving equal rights and respect to the people of the country,” he added.

This story first appeared in Hindustan Times. com