The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are all set to reunite after 26 years to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The parties that came together ahead of the 1993 assembly elections, had a bitter parting in 1995 with BSP’s Mayawati alleging physical attack by the SP workers.

The parties even filed FIRs against each other and Mayawati said the experiment had “failed because of Mulayam’s selfish politics.”

As the two parties come together here’s a look at what could be the possible break points in the partnership this time:

*As the two parties have a common vote bank, the personal ambitions of both the leaders may clash and ultimately lead to problems. Though BSP has a strong support base among Dalits and the SP among the backward castes, both the parties have been vying for the votes of Muslims, backwards and other smaller castes.

*Both parties will be wary of ceding political space to the other. Though together for the Lok Sabha polls, they will always want to be fighting fit for any solo show in future if today’s friends turn tomorrow’s rivals.

Watch: Mayawati’s disrespect will amount to my disrespect: Akhilesh Yadav

*BSP chief Mayawati, considered a shrewd politician, is known to keep allies on tenterhooks. In 1995, she pulled out of the tottering coalition with the SP and allied with the BJP to become the first Dalit chief minister of the state. More recently, within days of announcing support to the Congress governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the BSP chief threatened to walk out if cases filed against Dalits during Bharat Bandh in April were not withdrawn.

*Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will also have to grapple with the challenges he may face from within mainly on seats given to the BSP. Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party chief and Akhilesh’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav will obviously make efforts to make use of the situation in his favour by inducting many disgruntled SP leaders into his party.

First Published: Jan 12, 2019 15:17 IST