Lucknow: Hours after BSP supremo Mayawati issued a subtle warning to her ally Akhilesh Yadav, saying political compulsions had forced her to go solo in the assembly by-elections, the Samajwadi Party chief said his party was ready to fight the polls on its own.
Addressing reporters on Tuesday, Mayawati said, “Ever since SP-BSP coalition took shape, Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple Yadav have given me a lot of respect. I also forgot all our differences in the interest of the nation and gave them respect. Our relationship isn’t only for politics, it’ll continue forever.”
However, talking about the reasons behind the humiliating defeat of the alliance in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati said: “We can’t ignore political compulsions. In the results of the Lok Sabha elections in UP, the base vote of the Samajwadi Party, the ‘Yadav’ community, didn’t support the party. Even strong contenders of SP were defeated.”
Specifying that the BSP would fight the assembly bypolls solo, she denied that she was calling off the alliance. “It’s not a permanent break. If we feel in future that the 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.”
Reacting to her announcement, Akhilesh said: “If the coalition has broken, I will reflect deeply on it and if the coalition is not there in the by-elections, then Samajwadi Party will prepare for the elections. The SP will also fight on all 11 seats alone.”
Over a week after the Lok Sabha elections, BSP chief Mayawati had called for an important review meeting in Delhi to take stock of their performance. Sources in BSP claim that the BSP supremo admitted that the vote transfer from the SP side was not expected and perhaps that was the main reason for the defeat of alliance candidates in many seats including the wife of Akhilesh, Dimple Yadav, and his cousin Dharmendra Yadav.
Earlier, the BSP chief had cracked the whip and removed in-charges of six states Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Gujarat, and Rajasthan, while three state presidents of Delhi and Madhya Pradesh have also been removed.
The BSP had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections on 38 seats of Uttar Pradesh in a pre-poll alliance with the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal.
The Samajwadi Party contested on 37 seats while RLD contested on three seats; two seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli were left for Congress. However, even after the strategic alliance which was considered as a mega road block for the BJP, the BSP managed to win only 10 seats while the Samajwadi Party bagged just five seats.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal could not open its account, while of the two seats left for Congress, one seat of Amethi was snatched away by BJP.
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