Lucknow | Just weeks after the defeat in the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo today said that the party will contest the upcoming by-polls in the state alone.
Hinting towards a possible break of the alliance, Mayawati said,” If we feel in future that SP Chief succeeds in his political work, we’ll again work together. But if he doesn’t succeed, it’ll be good for us to work separately. So we’ve decided to fight the by-elections alone.”
Issuing a statement Mayawati said that the decision should not be considered as a permanent break in the SP-BSP relationship. She said,”Ever since SP-BSP coalition took place, SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav & his wife Dimple Yadav have given me a lot of respect. I also forgot all our differences in the interest of the nation, & gave them respect. Our relation isn’t only for politics, it’ll continue forever.”
Alleging that the Samajwadi Party’s core Yadav voters didn’t support the SP-BSP alliance in the Lok Sabha polls, Mayawati said, “In the results of Lok Sabha elections in UP, base vote of Samajwadi Party, the ‘Yadav’ community, didn’t support the party. Even strong contenders of SP were defeated.”
Earlier BSP supremo Mayawati expressed her unhappiness over the performance of the ‘gathbandhan’ in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls. Mayawati had also asked party workers not to depend on alliances to win votes but to improve the party’s organisation.
At a meeting of the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Uttar Pradesh unit in Delhi, she asked office bearers, MLAs and newly-elected MPs to be prepared to contest the assembly by-elections on their own, sources said here. Mayawati told the gathering at the party headquarters here that the BSP won 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh due to BSP’s traditional votebank and the votes of Samajwadi Party could not get transferred to its candidates.
She cited poor performance of its alliances in various states during assembly and Lok Sabha elections to drive home the point that the BSP will have to strengthen its own organisational structure and not depend on other parties to win elections.
A total of 11 assembly bypolls are due in UP after MLAs won Lok Sabha polls. Nine BJP MLAs won the Lok Sabha elections, while one each from BSP and SP were elected to the Lower House.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
