Days ahead of UP Legislative Council polls, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Thursday suspended seven of her MLAs for revolting against the party candidate and said that her party would vote for Bharatiya Janata Party or any other party candidate to defeat the Samajwadi Party.

“Candidate of any party,  even the BJP, who will be dominant over the SP’s second candidate, will get votes of all BSP MLAs’ for sure,” she said. She also regretted her party’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. 

The BSP and the SP had joined hands after a gap of over two decades to contest against the BJP in the 2019 parliamentary elections.

“I want to state that when we decided to contest polls with the Samajwadi Party for Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, we worked very hard for it but from Day 1 of our coalition, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav kept telling SC Mishra that since BSP-SP had joined hands, I should take back my June 1995 case.”

“When we saw SP’s behaviour towards us after the Lok Sabha election results, we realised that we had committed a big mistake by taking back our June 2, 1995 case against them and we should not have joined hands with them. We should have thought a bit deeply,” she said, while addressing the media here on Thursday. 

The BSP had won 10 of the 38 Lok Sabha seats it contested while the SP won five out of 37 seats.

“The SP always had an anti-Dalit attitude and once again on Wednesday, they tried to show their anti-Dalit face by conspiring to stop the BSP candidate. They could not get success and, hence, started alleging that the BSP was allying with the BJP to win the RS polls,” claimed BSP chief Mayawati.

Further attacking the SP, the BSP chief said, “I want to reveal to media today that when the notification for Rajya Sabha election was issued in UP, Ram Gopal Yadav filed his nomination and our national general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra said it looked like SP has fielded just one candidate and hence we should also field our candidate else some big businessmen will indulge in horse trading of our MLAs. SC Mishra had called up Akhilesh Yadav before fielding the candidate but the phone was not answered. Then his private secretary was called up and he had said that he would help connect with the SP chief but it did not happen.”

“Then SC Mishra called up Ram Gopal Yadav and asked him if they wanted to field another candidate, on which Ram Gopal Yadav said that the SP would field only one candidate. Then Mishra informed him that in such a case the BSP would field one of its candidates, else the BJP would field their candidate. Then we decided to field Ramji Gautam as our candidate for Rajya Sabha.”

“But just like Congress, the SP also showed their anti-Dalit mentality and deceived us. And even after saying that they would not field any candidate they made an independent candidate file nomination on the last day. 

“On the scrutiny day, they (SP) forced the BSP MLAs to give a false affidavit that they had not signed the nomination papers. Ultimately, their claims were found to be false and the BSP candidate’s nomination was found valid.”

Announcing action against the  seven BSP rebel MLAs, Mayawati said, “These seven MLAs who allegedly supported the SP candidate and betrayed the BSP, will be punished for working against the party and they are suspended with immediate effect. Also, the party post holders are directed that these MLA should not be called to any party programme. And, also as soon as they join another party their membership will be cancelled under anti-defection law,” she added.

Those suspended on Thursday included Aslam Ali, Aslam Rainee, Mujtaba Siddiqui, Hakim Lal Bind, Hargobind Bhargav, Sushma Patel and Vandana Singh.