The day after meeting Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati in New Delhi, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said: “After all, it’s a new year, and something new will start in the new year. I had gone (to meet Mayawati) to exchange new year greetings.”

Akhilesh did not talk about seat-sharing, but one of his close aides said: “Equal and amicable distribution of seats will happen between the two parties. The two parties will engage with mutual respect for each other.”

On why the SP and the BSP chose to tie up, Akhilesh said: “We had engaged in the politics of development. But at the time, we did not have the kind of arithmetic that the BJP did of castes. Now, our arithmetic is in place.”

SP’s national spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told PTI that Akhilesh and Mayawati had given their go-ahead for the alliance after a series of meetings between them.

“A number of meetings between SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati have already been held. Yesterday too, both leaders met in Delhi,” he said “Talks are going on to accommodate some smaller parties in the alliance,” he said.

He admitted that the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which has a presence in western UP, is among these parties.

When asked about the possible inclusion of Congress in the UP alliance, Chaudhary said, “This will be decided by Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati.” But he added the SP and the BSP will not field candidates in Amethi and Raebareli, leaving these Lok Sabha constituencies for Congress president Rahul Gandhi and United Progressive Alliance chief Sonia Gandhi.

Akhilesh Yadav had recently expressed displeasure against the Congress for not including its lone MLA in the new Madhya Pradesh ministry headed by Kamal Nath.

BSP leader Mayawati too has said it may withdraw its outside support to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan if the cases against Dalits lodged during a protest last year are not withdrawn.

The BJP dubbed the coming closer of the SP and the BSP “opportunistic”.

“This is an opportunistic alliance and it is completely anti-people. The BJP will register massive wins in UP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” UP BJP spokesperson Hero Bajpai told reporters.

(With agency inputs)

First Published: Jan 05, 2019 21:35 IST