Bahujan Samaj Party Supremo Mayawati along with Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav at a joint press conference at Hotel Taj in Lucknow on Saturday. (Express Photo by Vishal Srivastav)With flags of both Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party waiving outside the venue of press conference, and workers of both the parties shouting together “Jai Bhim”, “Jai Mayawati” and “Jai-Jai-Jai Akhilesh”, BSP chief Mayawati and SP president Akhilesh Yadav announced alliance of their parties sharing 38 seats each and leaving two seats each for Congress (Rae Bareli and Amethi) and possible future alliance, respectively.
“Yeh naye varsh 2019 mein nayi rajnaitik kranti ka sandesh mana jayega (This will be regarded as a new political revolution in the new year 2019),” Mayawati said about the tie-up, adding that this alliance was not just to win the election but also to render strength to backward communities, including Dalits and Muslims.
The BSP chief stated that the alliance would benefit each other just like the alliance stitched by former BSP chief Kanshiram and former SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav back in 1993.
“Lucknow guest house kand se bhi upar uthate hue..ekbar phir humein usi prakar ki dushit sampradayikta ke mauhaul ko dekhte hue gadhbadan ka faisla liya.. (Rising above the infamous guest house incident and in view of the prevailing toxic environment, we have decided to form an alliance),” she added.
Yadav, on the other hand, told BJP as well as his own party workers that he would consider any disrespect towards Mayawati as his own disrespect. “Adarniya Mayawati ji ka samman mera samman hai..agar Mayawati ji ka koi apman karta hai to mera apmaan hai,” Akhilesh said.
While the alliance decided to leave two seats (Rae Bareli and Amethi), represented by Sonia Gandhi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati clarified that Congress is not part of the alliance but the step is just to ensure that BJP is not able to keep the Congress president busy in these two constituencies.
She said that the alliance was leaving Amethi and Rae Bareli without any alliance with Congress just because “BJP ke log Congress party ke adhyaksha ko yahan uljha ke na rakh sakein.” (So that BJP people do not end up holding Congress president here only.)
However, she explained the reason for keeping the Congress out of the alliance. Citing past experiences, Mayawati said aligning with the Congress had ended up benefiting the BJP.
Mayawati said that though the talks about the possibility of SP and BSP alliance started after they defeated BJP during the bye-elections, actual seat sharing was finalised during the meeting between the two leaders on January 4 in New Delhi.
Akhilesh chose to avoid making any direct attack on the Congress. However, Mayawati did not hesitate to speak against the grand old party at length and equated Congress to BJP. She said that while Congress, which ruled the country for maximum years after independence has a controversial past in regard with defence deals and went out of power in 1977 due to Bofors, BJP in the similar fashion would go out of power because of Rafale.
She said that just like emergency imposed during the Congress rule, the country was facing similar situation even today. Mayawati further said the difference was it was a declared emergency during the Congress rule while it is an undeclared emergency at present.
However, both Akhilesh and Mayawati kept mum on Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which is eyeing to enter into the alliance but Akhilesh hinted that he was even ready to take a step back for this.
Referring to the alliance as “historic”, the BSP chief began by saying that it is something which would take away the sleep of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP National President Amit Shah, referring to them as “Guru-chele”.
“Dono guru aur chele ki neend urane wali hai, ati-aitihasik pc ho rahi hai,” said BSP chief Mayawati before announcing the alliance.
