BSP chief Mayawati said on Wednesday that the Bharatiya Janata Party was desperate to befriend new parties ahead of the Lok Sabha polls at it was scared of the Bahujan Samaj Party-Samajwadi Party alliance in Uttar Pradesh.
Her remarks came in the wake of the BJP announcing a tie-up with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu.
On Monday, the BJP and Shiv Sena had announced a pre-poll alliance in Maharashtra with 25 seats for BJP and 23 seats for Shiv Sena. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP forged an alliance with AIADMK and agreed to contest from five seats in the state. The BJP has already forged an alliance with Janata Dal (United) in Bihar.
Taking a dig at the BJP’s alliance politics, Mayawati in a tweet said that no matter what antics the BJP may use, it will not be ‘forgiven’ this time.
“Does the alliances forged by the BJP in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Bihar reveal its strong leadership trait? In reality, the BJP is so scared of the BSP-SP tie-up that it has been forced to form alliances. Now, no matter how much the BJP tries, the poor people, labourers and farmers are unhappy with the dictatorial policies of the government. The 130 crore people of India will not forgive them and will shunt them out in the polls,” she tweeted.
Earlier this year, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party announced a pre-poll alliance for 2019 Lok Sabha elections and decided to contest 38 seats each leaving two seats each for smaller parties and two — n Amethi and Rae Bareli — for the Congress.
Stung by the slight, the Congress announced that it would contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP.
During the recent visits of Congress general secretaries Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (incharge east UP) and Jyotiraditya Scindia (incharge west UP), the grand old party had roped in OBC outfit Mahan Dal for a tie-up in UP. Senior Congress leaders have said alliances with more like-minded parties could be considered before the election.