Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP) leader Shivpal Singh Yadav on Friday claimed that the Samajwadi Party-led alliance lost the recent Uttar Pradesh assembly elections because of “dishonesty and cunningness” of the BJP.

He said the alliance has the backing of the people and it will face the challenges firmly.

“Our (SP alliance) seats and vote percentage have increased in the elections. The people of the state did not defeat the SP. It was because of BJP’s dishonesty and cunningness that we lost,” Yadav, who got elected from his traditional Jaswant Nagar seat, told newspersons.

Some ministers in the BJP-led central government as well as many officers of the state government are involved in “this design of the BJP”, he alleged.

The people of the state are with us, so we are not afraid. We will face the challenges and problems firmly and will continue to work to provide justice to people, Shivpal Yadav, who is the uncle of Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav asserted.

Shivpal Yadav had got into a tussle with Akhilesh Yadav and formed the PSP before the assembly polls in 2017 but contested the 2022 elections in alliance with the SP.