Samajwadi Party National president Akhilesh Yadav greets BSP Supremo Mayawati on her 63rd Birthday in Lucknow on Tuesday. (Express photo: Vishal Srivastav)Days after Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) joined hands, the BSP chief Tuesday appealed to the workers of both the parties to forget their past differences, adding that this will be her birthday gift this year.
Mayawati, who turned 63 today, said, “Forget past differences and ensure the victory of all joint candidates of the SP and the BSP. This will be my ideal birthday gift.” The leader was greeted by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav at her residence in Lucknow, on her birthday.
On Saturday, the BSP and the SP announced an alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to unitedly fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The parties decided to bury the hatchet twenty-four years after the infamous guesthouse episode. Out of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha seats, both the parties have decided on a 50-50 seat-sharing deal under which each party will contest 38 seats. Both parties will leave two seats for the smaller parties.
The parties, however, will not contest in Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, respectively. The SP-BSP ‘gathbandhan’ has kept the Congress out of the alliance, reacting to which Congress leader RPN Singh Monday said, “An SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh without the Congress was exactly what the BJP wanted initially and the two regional parties have fallen into the ruling party’s design.”
He said the BJP wanted the secular parties to remain divided in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh before the 2019 Lok Sabha election and contest independently so that their votes could be split. Its attempts have proved successful, he added.
On Sunday, the Congress said it would contest on all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the general election, expected in April-May. It also said that the party was left out of the SP-BSP alliance would not affect its prospects and the Congress would contest with “full force”.
