BSP will fight Lok Sabha polls solo in UP: Mayawati

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati said on Wednesday that her party has decided to contest next year’s Lok Sabha elections on its own in Uttar Pradesh as past experience shows that it doesn’t gain anything from entering into an alliance. At a meeting with party leaders, Mayawati slammed both the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA and the Opposition’s India grouping.
She claimed that whenever the BSP fights elections in alliance with another party in UP, its votes get transferred to the partner, but the reverse does not happen. “The BSP had to bear more loss than gain by getting into alliances in UP as its votes clearly get transferred to the alliance partner, but the other parties do not have the right intention or the capability to transfer their votes to our candidate,” a statement quoted her as saying. She said this “bitter truth” has to be kept in mind as it affects the morale of party workers. “So we have decided to go alone in the parliamentary polls next year,” the former chief minister said.
She asked her party leaders to work to strengthen the organisation by organising small cadre-based meetings at villages to expand the support base among the ‘Sarv Samaj’, the statement said. The BSP had earlier entered into alliances with the Samajwadi Party and the Congress in the state and Lok Sabha elections in UP. The BSP fought the last general elections with the SP and currently has 10 MPs in the Lok Sabha from UP. It also has a handful of MLAs in UP, Uttarakhand, and Punjab.
Speaking about the ruling NDA and the opposition bloc in India, Mayawati said that though they are making claims about coming to power at the Centre next year, the promises made by them have proved to be hollow while they have been in government. “Both the blocs have done little for the welfare of the ‘Bahujan Samaj’ and they have mostly been busy breaking and weakening society by indulging in narrow politics. Therefore, it is better to maintain distance with them,” she said.
The BSP chief also called for “special caution” in the selection of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Mayawati claimed that there is feedback that the BJP, which indulges in the “politics of casteism and communalism”, is not only losing its impact but also its public support.