The Samajwadi Party seems to have developed second thoughts on alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the unity of the opposition parties to take on the resurgent BJP in Uttar Pradesh. SP maintained that there are no plans for the joint political rally with the BSP or association with the BSP at any level.
“Not much should be inferred from the recent luncheon meeting of our party president Akhilesh Yadav with the BSP chief Mayawati recently at the residence of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi. It was a formal meeting to discuss the opposition candidate for the election of President and nothing concerning UP was on the agenda of the meeting’’, said the Samajwadi party spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary here on Monday.
“There are no plans for the joint rally with the BSP in near future and there is also no possibility of the tie up between the two parties for the impending elections of the urban local bodies’’, said Rajendra Chowdhary. He added, “we are in the midst of massive exercise of membership drive across the state which will continue till June 15 and right now we are concentrating on this issue only. There is no such plan for any talks with the BSP for future tie up or joint rally’’.
Asked whether the BSP remains untouchable for the SP, as the former had entered into an alliance with the BJP to form the government in UP for three times in the past, the SP spokesman said ``BSP association with the BJP is a fact, at the same time the political situation in UP has witnessed radical change after the recent assembly elections and for the Samajwadi party nobody is untouchable in politics and the SP stands for the consolidation of the secular forces’’.
Following coming together of the two arch rivals for the first time after 22 years at the residence of the Congress president had triggered the speculations that both the parties would not only announce their new relations , they would also hold a joint rally in UP. The idea of a joint rally was the brainchild of the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief lalu Prasad Yadav. He had asked the two satraps of UP—Akhilesh and Mayawati to come forward and help host big political congregations of anti-BJP parties across the country.
Soon after the meeting in Delhi with the Congress president, the Samajwadi party Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Agarwal had said both the parties had reached an in principal agreement for holding the joint rallies in UP. He had said that a rally would be organised after the rally in Patna to be organised by lalu Prasad Yadav on August 27 after the President’s elections. Within couple of days after the meeting in Delhi , the leaders of SP and the BSP seems to have developed second thoughts as they are aware that it would be an uphill task to forge the alliance at the grass root level.
The coming together of the two rival parties has been widely speculated after the two regional parties were virtually decimated during the recent assembly elections. The tally of the SP was reduced to 47 seats and the BSP to mere 19 seats in the assembly.