With BOX on Akhilesh’s responseLucknow: Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday accepted the challenge of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to contest from Ayodhya in the 2027 assembly elections, daring the SP boss to try his luck from the temple town.“Akhilesh ji, you should also contest from Ayodhya. I will contest, too. Let’s test our fortunes. Why should the battle be fought through proxies? It should be a direct contest. Let us face each other,” Yogi said while addressing a gathering in Balrampur on Saturday.Yogi’s challenge comes two days after Akhilesh challenged the CM to contest from Ayodhya, setting the stage for a fresh political face-off between BJP and SP.“If the Chief Minister, who makes big claims, is so confident, then he should contest the election from Ayodhya himself,” Akhilesh had said during a visit to Ayodhya earlier this week. The SP boss was addressing a gathering at a religious congregation organized by SP functionary and former UP minister Tej Narayan “Pawan” Pandey in Ayodhya.Launching a sharp counter-attack on Akhilesh, Yogi alleged that the SP leaders were rattled and accused them of having links with the mafia.“The SP leaders are already unnerved. These are the people who grovel before the mafia and perform fatiha at their graves. How will they fight us? They do not have the courage,” he said.Asserting that voters had already rejected such politics, Yogi said the SP leaders had lost their political relevance.Yogi also invoked Ayodhya’s religious and cultural significance, asserting that the BJP govt was committed to the development of the temple town.Emphasising that Ayodhya was a centre of faith, Yogi said his visits to the holy city were aimed at ensuring its development rather than electoral politics.“Ayodhya is a sacred abode to us. I visit Ayodhya repeatedly to ensure that there is no laxity in its development and that Uttar Pradesh’s identity is not tarnished in any way,” he said.Yogi said that Ayodhya was like the foundation of the Hindu faith. “We do not go there to contest elections, but to ensure its development,” he said.The verbal salvos between Yogi and Akhilesh signalled intensifying political rhetoric as BJP and SP position themselves aggressively against each other ahead of the upcoming high-stakes poll battle.The development also underpinned Ayodhya’s prominence in BJP’s Hindutva narrative to take on SP’s PDA poll plank, which is said to have dented the saffron outfit in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Experts said that by invoking Ayodhya, Yogi sought to reinforce BJP’s ownership of the narrative ahead of the state polls.Analysts said that the political significance of the challenge appeared to extend beyond the possibility of a contest between the two leaders. “Whether Akhilesh accepts it or not, the exchange allows both parties to mobilise their respective support bases,” analysts said.BOXPDA sentinel is enough to take you on: Akhileshtimes news networkLucknow: SP chief Akhilesh Yadav hit back after CM Yogi Adityanath dared him to contest from Ayodhya. “To defeat the thieves of offerings, donations and contributions in Ayodhya, even a single young PDA (Pichhda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak) sentinel is enough,” he said.“Those who give clean chits to thieves are themselves stakeholders in the wrongdoing. The truth has not come out yet, but this time the people will bring all that arrogance down. Have you forgotten the Lok Sabha elections? And whatever remains unfinished will be completed by the women of Ayodhya, who witnessed how an arrogant dispensation publicly insulted a grieving mother. Did your internal survey tell you that no one from your side wants to contest the election in Ayodhya?,” he asked.