Akhilesh Yadav Given Warm Welcome Upon Arrival

Former Chief Minister of UP and president of the Samajwadi Party Akhilesh Yadav was accorded a warm welcome by TRS leaders and members of the Yadava community upon arrival at the Begumpet airport on Wednesday afternoon.

The SP chief arrived in the city upon invitation from Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who is trying to form a federal front as an alternative to the Congress and the BJP at the national level.

A few days back IT Minister K T Rama Rao made a stopover in Uttar Pradesh and called upon Yadav and extended an invitation to him on behalf of KCR. Accordingly Yadav arrived by a special flight and was received by KTR and Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav.

A number of leaders belonging to Yadava community and other social organizations also accorded him a grand welcome.

Yadav later drove to Pragathi Bhavan where he had a luncheon meeting with the CM and discussed the proposed federal front.

KCR has already met West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee; JD (S) chief and former PM Deve Gowda and his son Kumaraswamy; and DMK patriach M Karunanidhi and the party's working president M K Stalin and sister Kanimozhi; and had telephonic talks with JMM chief Sibu Soren, as part of his efforts to sew the front.

Interestingly the SP and the Congress contested the 2014 elections together. Yadav is not averse to the Congress and has been maintaining cordial relations with Rahul Gandhi, and it is to be seen how he will react to KCR's committed efforts to forge a federal front against the Congress and the BJP.

For his part KCR made all the necessary arrangements to wow the young SP chief by plastering the main throughfares in the city from the Begumpet airport with huge welcome arches for and cut-outs of Yadav.