Much to the embarrassment of the Bharatiya Janata Party,  Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale said here on Friday that the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party tie-up in Uttar Pradesh could cost the ruling party and its partners 25 to 30 lok Sabha seats in the 2019 lok Sabha elections.

Athawale, whose Republican Party of India (A) is a partner of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), however asserted that “no one can challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.

“The SP-BSP combine may damage the BJP and its allies by winning some 25-30 lok Sabha seats. But, the BJP will get more than 50 seats. However, this will not prevent the BJP-led NDA from returning to power at the Centre after the 2019 lok Sabha polls,” Athawale said in a press conference here.

In the same breath, the RPI (A) leader said, “No one can challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi, neither Congress president Rahul Gandhi, nor SP chief Akhilesh Yadav nor BSP supremo Mayawati.”

Uttar Pradesh has 80 lok Sabha seats of which the BJP and its allies won 73 in the 2014 parliamentary elections. The Congress won Amethi and Rae Bareli while the Samajwadi Party won five seats. In the recent bypolls, the SP wrested the prestigious Gorakhpur and Phulpur lok Sabha seats from the BJP with the support of BSP  to increase its tally to seven.

A consolidation of OBC, Dalit and Muslim votes powered the SP candidates to victory in the bypolls to Gorakhpur, a seat represented by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for five successive terms, and Phulpur, from where Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya was elected in the 2014 lok Sabha polls. The prominent Dalit leader from Maharashtra welcomed the Yogi Adityanath government’s order to all departments and Allahabad High Court benches to add  ‘Ramji’ to the name of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.

As per common practice in Maharashtra, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, while writing his name on the 8th Schedule of the Constitution, had added ‘Ramji’, his father’s name, as his middle name.

Amid Mayawati’s ongoing efforts to cobble together a front of non-BJP parties for the 2019 lok Sabha polls, the RPI (A) president asked the BSP supremo to join the NDA if her concern for Dalits was genuine.

Seeking to drive a wedge into the new-found bonhomie between the SP and the BSP, Athawale claimed that the BSP candidate lost the Rajya Sabha election in UP as the SP “betrayed” Mayawati’s nominee by not backing him in return for her support to SP in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur lok Sabha bypolls. Atrocities were still being committed on Dalits but the BJP-led government at the Centre was not responsible for it, the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment said, adding there was need to give more teeth to the law to protect the Dalits.