Grand Alliance is the demand of time to defeat BJP: Tejaswi

Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday called for a Grand Alliance at the national level to defeat the BJP and said there was a need for opposition leaders to shed their ego.

"A Grand Alliance is the demand of time, it is the demand of the people. Keep your ego away," Yadav said as the BJP lost the Lok Sabha seats of Phulpur and Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and Araria in Bihar.

He said the Samajwadi Party and the BSP should fight the 2019 Lok Sabha polls together and urged the Congress to join them.

"There is a need to teach a lesson to those who have destroyed the country," Yadav said. The Bahujan Samaj Party supported the Samajwadi Party in both Phulpur and Gorakhpur to avoid a split in opposition vote.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal had the backing of the Congress in Bihar.

He said the RJD's victory in Araria was not a victory of M-Y (Muslim Yadav) combination, but a victory of everyone -- "from A to Z".

The former Deputy Chief Minister, who led the RJD campaign as his father and RJD chief Lalu Prasad is in jail, said his party's social support base was intact.

BJP leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi downplayed the victory of the RJD, saying it was the result of sympathy votes in Lalu Prasad's favour.