Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav today said that the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance will win a majority in the upcoming elections in the state.

Calling himself and RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary sons of farmers, Akhilesh said they will fight for farmers till the end.

“I always carry a packet in my pocket – ‘laal topi and ‘laal potli’. I carry an ‘ann sankalp’ to defeat the BJP and make them run away,” he said.

Attacking the BJP, Akhilesh said it is time to end negative politics and accused the saffron party of not fulfilling a single one of their pre-2017 promises.

This is their first joint rally after the announcement of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and comes after Union Home Minister Amit Shah extended an invitation to Jayant Chaudhary to quit the alliance with SP and join BJP.

Responding to Shah’s invitation, Jayant said that he “never flips like a coin”.

In a bid to woo the Jats of western UP, Shah had said that the RLD chief has chosen the “wrong home” and suggested that its doors were open for the RLD leader.

Talking to Jat leaders, Shah said the ideology of both the party and the community is the same as both keep national interest first and have been fighting against “invaders”.

The meeting held at the residence of BJP MP Parvesh Verma was also attended by the party’s prominent Jat leaders including Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan who is an MP from Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh.

Jats dominate almost all the seats in western Uttar Pradesh, a region where the RLD holds sway.

The RLD, led by former prime minister Charan Singh’s grandson Jayant Chaudhary, has joined hands with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party this time to contest UP polls together.