Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party government over the increase in fuel prices and said that the people would not forget their sufferings easily.
"The way prices of petrol and diesel have increased by a record high in the last few days and the way inflation has increased in the country, the public will not forget this easily. The prices they (BJP) have reduced due to fear of defeat in the assembly elections to be held in many states, will be recovered from the public with interest by the BJP once the elections are over. The people should remember this,” Mayawati said.
The seven states that are slated to go to assembly elections in 2022 are Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. In the 2017 UP assembly elections, the BJP won a landslide victory winning 312 seats and secured a 39.67 per cent vote share in the elections for 403-member assembly. The Samajwadi Party bagged 47 seats, the BSP won 19 while the Congress could manage only seven seats.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Mayawati also ruled out alliance with any political party for the 2022 UP assembly elections, stating that she did not see any difference between any political party in the poll-bound state.
"The BSP will not have any 'chunavi samjhauta' (pre-poll agreement) with any party. We will contest on our own. We are entering into agreement with people of all sections of society to bring them together -- this alliance is permanent," Mayawati said, exuding confidence that her party would return to power with a promising mandate like in 2007.
"We do not see any difference between the Samajwadi Party and the BJP. They are two sides of the same coin. They just want to make the polls a Hindu-Muslim issue. We are confident that we will get an absolute majority, just like we got in 2007. The people of UP will not fall for the poll promises of either the Congress or the SP, let alone the ruling BJP dispensation," prophesied the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh..
"The people of the state are not going to easily believe the numerous poll promises made by the Congress, just like the SP. Had Congress fulfilled even 50 per cent of their poll promises, they would not have been out of power at the Centre, UP and in most of the states of India," the BSP chief said.
“The BJP government in the UP is inaugurating projects across the state just to woo the electorate. With the assembly elections inching closer, the drama by the BJP and other rival parties to lure people of the state has started. The truth is that announcement of projects and inauguration of incomplete works in the last two months by the BJP governments at the Centre and in UP, will continue until polls," Mayawati added.