Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Wednesday said her party has decided to contest next year’s Lok Sabha elections on its own in Uttar Pradesh as past experience shows that it doesn’t gain anything from entering into an alliance.
At a meeting here with party leaders, Mayawati slammed both the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA and the Opposition’s INDIA grouping.
She claimed that whenever the BSP fights elections in alliance with another party in UP, its votes get transferred to the partner but the reverse does not happen.
“The BSP had to bear more loss than gain by getting into alliances in UP as its votes clearly get transferred to the alliance partner but the other parties do not have the right intention or the capability to transfer their votes to our candidate,” said a statement quoted her as saying.
She said this “bitter truth” has to be kept in mind as it affects the morale of party workers.
“…So we have decided to go alone in the parliamentary polls next year,” the former chief minister said.
She asked her party leaders to work to strengthen the organisation by organising small cadre-based meetings at villages to expand support base among the ‘Sarv Samaj’, the statement said.
The BSP had earlier entered into alliances with the Samajwadi Party and the Congress in the state and Lok Sabha elections in UP.
The BSP had fought the last general elections with the SP and has at present 10 MPs in Lok Sabha from UP. It also has a handful of MLAs in UP, Uttarakhand and Punjab.
Speaking about the ruling NDA and the opposition bloc INDIA, Mayawati said that though they are making claims about coming to power at the Centre next year, the promises made by them have proved to be hollow while they have been in government.
“Both the blocs have done little for the welfare of the ‘Bahujan Samaj’ and they have mostly been busy in breaking and weakening the society by indulging in narrow politics…therefore it is better to maintain distance with them,” she said.
The BSP chief also called for “special caution” in the selection of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Mayawati claimed that there is a feedback that the BJP, which indulges in the “politics of casteism and communalism”, is not only losing its impact but also its public support.
“The result of this would be that the elections in Uttar Pradesh would not be ‘one-sided’. It will also lead to a change in national politics,” she said.
Mayawati said that the main reason behind BJP’s “sliding impact” in UP has been its tall claims and anti-people actions causing hardships for the people in the form of inflation, poverty, unemployment and hatred, and asserted that the people now want to be free from it.
Like the Congress, there is a big gap between the words and actions of the BJP, she said and asked if anyone can deny that this will not have an impact on the election results.
The BSP chief also made minor changes in the party organisation and said that they were important in view of the continued changing political scenario, the statement added.
