SAMAJWADI Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday said that his party would maintain equidistance from both the Congress and the BJP. To defeat the BJP, the SP would stand firmly with Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, he said. “In Bengal, we are with Mamata didi. Right now, our stand is we want to maintain equidistance from both the BJP and the Congress” he said while talking to reporters on the sidelines of his party’s workers’ meet.

The Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party will work unitedly to fight against the BJP nationally, senior SP leader Kiranmoy Nanda said after a meeting between supremos of the two parties, Mamata Banerjee and Akhilesh Yadav, on Friday. Yadav, Nanda who is an SP national Vice-President, and other leaders called on Banerjee at her residence in Kalighat here and they held an hour-long closed-door meeting. “It has been decided that the TMC and the SP would work unitedly to fight the BJP. Both the parties would also maintain distance from the Congress,” Nanda told PTI after the meeting.

Yadav said told reporters that regional parties will chart their course of action in the days to come. “We share a very cordial relationship with Mamata Banerjee. Naturally, the present political situation of the country was discussed during the meeting,” he said. When asked about the role of the Congress in the opposition front, Yadav said the grand old party has to decide this on its own. “Regional parties are competent enough to decide their roles. The Congress has to decide its role. Nobody should take any step which might have any adverse impact (on fighting the BJP),” he said while adding there are several faces in the Opposition camp who can become the Prime Minister. The Trinamool Congress is yet to come out with any official statement on the meeting except a tweet sharing pictures of both the leaders greeting each other.