SBSP may contest Lok Sabha polls alone in UP, Bihar

VARANASI: The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party may go alone to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Expressing his displeasure over their alliance partner, the UP minister and SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar said, “It is upon BJP to maintain cordial relation with us to be a part of the NDA, otherwise we are ready to contest on all 80 seats in UP and 16 seats in Bihar in the forthcoming elections, and we are preparing for it.”
Talking to reporters at Rasra in Ballia district on Tuesday evening, Rajbhar accused the BJP of doing divisive politics and alleged it wants to suppress him. “BJP does not want to see an emerging Om Prakash Rajbhar to lead deprived people, hence it plays all tricks to suppress me, he said adding that it gets time to generate controversies, but has no time to implement the categorisation of OBC reservation of 27%. The BJP would have to pay a price for it, he warned.

Training his gun on chief minister Yogi Adityanath, he said that he (Yogi) kicked off a new controversy by dubbing Lord Hanuman as Dalit. He should also disclose the caste of other deities, he mocked and alleged that the BJP is trying to divert people’s attention from core issues by creating unnecessary controversies.

Rajbhar said that it was the incompetency of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samajwadi Party leaders that led the BJP-led NDA to come in power in UP. “Had they (SP and BSP) done work for the cause of common people during their regimes, we would not have got a chance to be in the government,” he said and added that factors like dragging gods into politics and SC/ST Act were responsible for the NDA’s defeat in recent assembly polls.

Meanwhile, BJPs another alliance partner Apna Dal (S) also expressed its unhappiness and accused the BJP of not giving importance to the party leaders. Talking to reporters in Mirzapur on Tuesday, husband of Union minister Anupriya Patel and president of AD (S) Ashish Patel said that the BJP should learn lessons from defeats in assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. He alleged that the BJP’s state leadership keeps distance from AD (S) and avoids to invite leaders in public functions.