Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Saturday spelt out the reasons for not accommodating the Congress in the alliance with the Samajwadi Party for the coming Lok Sabha polls.

She said the Congress ruled the country and the state for the maximum period after Independence and the people were harassed by its policies. Alleging that corruption as well as poverty increased under Congress rule, she said the weaker section in the society were denied rights and justice.

Terming the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party as two sides of the same coin, she said there was no difference between the policies of their governments. Both the parties indulged in corruption in defence deals, she alleged.

The Congress lost power due the Bofors gun deal and the BJP will lose power due to the Rafale fighter aircraft deal, she said.

Mayawati accused the Congress of suppressing the democratic rights of the people by slapping Emergency in the country whereas there was an undeclared emergency in the country under the BJP government.

She also said that there is no electoral gain in accommodating the Congress in the alliance. Recalling the joining-up with the Congress in 1996 assembly election, Mayawati said the Congress does not transfer its votes to the alliance partners whereas it gains the votes transferred by the ally. As a result, the vote percentage of the alliance partner decreases, she said.

Making it clear that there will be no alliance with the Congress in other states too, Mayawati said the BSP and SP alliance had been fruitful as both had gained electorally in the 1993 assembly election.

She cautioned people not to waste their vote by supporting the party floated by rebel Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav and described it as a BJP ploy. Taking a potshot at the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) leader, she said the money spent by the BJP to promote Shivpal will now go waste.

‘BJP TRIED TO SULLY AKHILESH’S IMAGE’

Mayawati also said the alliance was finalised during a meeting with Akhilesh Yadav in Delhi on January 4. Rattled by the alliance, the BJP tried to malign the image of Akhilesh Yadav in the sand mining case by misusing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) but she telephoned him to caution against the dirty tricks of the BJP government, she said.

Expressing confidence that the BSP-SP alliance will emerge victorious in the LS election, she said that the only hiccups could be that the BJP tampers with the EVMs (electronic voting machines) or try to flare up communalism by raising the Ram temple issue.

INVOKES AMBEDKAR, LOHIA

Invoking Dalit icon Bhimrao Ambedkar and socialist ideologue Ram Manohar Lohia, Mayawati said the SP-BSP alliance will give momentum to the ideals of both leaders and help grab the master key of political power.

Recalling the BSP’s earlier alliance with SP in 1993 when Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh Yadav had joined hands, she said it defeated the BJP but “could not continue due to some grim reasons”.

First Published: Jan 12, 2019 18:41 IST