MAINPURI: Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday backed the decision of his son and party president Akhilesh Yadav of joining hands with the BSP for elections, saying such an alliance will prove to be very strong in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

"It is a very good effort...with both the parties coming together, no one will be able to stop them in the Lok Sabha election...there is a need to keep it going," he told a public meeting at Kishni here.

The SP patron also thanked the workers of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for supporting the SP candidates in the recently held bypolls to two Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.

Shunning their decades-long rivalry, the SP and the BSP came together against the BJP in the bypolls and wrested the two important Lok Sabha seats -- Gorakhpur and Phulpur -- from the saffron party last month.