Mayawati: Will contest by-polls alone, but not permanent break from SP

Mayawati. Pic/ANI

Claiming that the Samajwadi Party's vote base did not support the alliance in the Lok Sabha elections, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Tuesday announced that she will fight the by-polls to 11 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh alone, but said this is not a "permanent break" from her alliance with the Samajwadi Party.

"It is not a permanent break. 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," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister told ANI.

"We can't ignore political compulsions. 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," she asserted.

The statement from the BSP supremo came after reports surfaced that she had asked her party cadre to get ready to contest the upcoming assembly by-polls on their own after her party fared poorly in Lok Sabha polls, despite being in alliance with Samajwadi Party and RLD.

Mayawati, however, also praised Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and said that their relationship will continue in the future.

"Ever since the SP-BSP coalition took place, SP Chief 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 relation is not only for politics, it will continue forever," she added.

Mayawati had also reportedly asked her MLAs and the newly-elected MPs to not depend on allies to win votes and work towards improving the party's organisation.

Eleven Assembly constituencies have fallen vacant after sitting MLAs post winning Lok Sabha elections. Nine of them are from the BJP and one each from the BSP and the SP.

While holding a review meeting with top party leaders of the BSP, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister is said to have claimed that the recent election drubbing was due to the poor performance of the alliance with the Samajwadi Party led by Akhilesh Yadav.

In the Lok Sabha polls, Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple lost by over 12,000 votes in Kannauj constituency, his two cousins Akshay Yadav and Dharmendra Yadav lost from Ferozabad and Badaun constituencies.

The BSP and SP contested from 38 parliamentary seats each and gave four seats to the RLD. However, the alliance could only manage to win only 15 seats--10 by BSP and five by SP-- while the RLD drew a blank. BJP swept the state by bagging 62 out of the total 80 seats.

On the other hand, Akhilesh Yadav said that the Samajwadi Party will fight for social justice together with the Bahujan Samaj Party.

BSP chief Mayawati earlier told her party workers in New Delhi that the Lok Sabha poll drubbing in Uttar Pradesh was due to the "poor performance" of the alliance with the SP.

Akhilesh Yadav, however, defended the poll performance of the alliance, saying that the Lok Sabha poll battle this time was of a different kind, which he could not understand.

"It was a race between Ferrari and a cycle (the SP's election symbol). Everybody knew the Ferrari will win. The Lok Sabha elections were not fought on issues, it was fought on something else," said Yadav.

On Monday, Hariom Yadav, an SP MLA had said that it was only Mayawati who benefited from the tie-up. "If the coalition had not happened, Mayawati would have been at 0 and SP would have won 25 seats," Yadav had said. "The Yadav community voted for her but (Mayawati) vote share went to BJP," he added.

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Edited by mid-day online desk with inputs from Agencies