Hours after Mayawati announced that her party will contest the by-polls to 11 seats in Uttar Pradesh alone, the BJP on Tuesday said that the ‘unprincipled’ SP-BSP coalition in the state was bound to collapse as it has been rejected by people.
BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao told news agency ANI, “SP-BSP is an unprincipled alliance. People of Uttar Pradesh have completely rejected this alliance and gave it a result that leads to its collapse.”
He said that the ‘mahagathbandhan’ (grand-alliance) in the state was formed to prevent Narendra Modi from becoming the Prime Minister again. “It was an alliance of convenience and compulsion which was crafted to prevent Modi ji from becoming PM again,” the BJP leader said.
Calling Mayawati’s decision to go solo in the by-elections ‘predictable’, Rao said, “This announcement is something we had predicted months ago. PM Modi in his rallies had said that this is an alliance of convenience. This is a self-centred alliance.”
Earlier in the day, BSP chief Mayawati had said that her ally Samajwadi Party’s vote base did not support the coalition in the Lok Sabha elections and announced her decision to fight by-elections in Uttar Pradesh alone. She, however, said that it was not a ‘permanent break’ from her alliance with Akhilesh Yadav-led party.
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The BSP supremo said, “It is not a permanent break. If we feel in future that SP Chief succeeds in his political work, we’ll again work together. But if he doesn’t succeed, it will be good for us to work separately. So we’ve decided to fight the by-elections alone.”
Moments after Mayawati’s remark, Akhilesh Yadav said, “If the coalition has broken, I will reflect deeply on it & if the coalition isn’t there in the by-elections, then Samajwadi Party will prepare for the elections. SP will also fight on all 11 seats alone.”
The two local satraps contested the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in the state together in an effort to defeat the BJP, but they won only 15 of the 80 seats between them. The BJP won 62 seats.