The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will field candidates in all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and will not go with ‘communal’ BJP and its allies for government formation, the BSP supremo Mayawati said on Thursday.
Releasing the BSP’s list of all candidates in the state in one instalment ‘unlike political opponents’, she said her party is contesting the elections with full preparation to emerge as the balance of power at the Centre. “Once we emerge as balance of power, we will take the help of only secular parties for forming the government,” the BSP supremo said.
“Instead of issues like unemployment, corruption and poverty, the coming elections appear to be a contest between two ideologies of communalism and secularism,” she said, adding that most parties have fielded their candidates keeping this fact in mind. The former chief minister asserted that her party would fight the coming polls with all its strength to check communal parties from coming to power and, at the same time, said that Congress-led UPA which has failed on all fronts should not be allowed to return.
Asked whether she would take the help of Samajwadi Party for government formation, she said that the BSP does not consider it as a secular party.
“SP government’s tenure in Uttar Pradesh so far has been really bad specially on the law and order and development front... so there would be every effort to ensure that this time the right party leads the government at the Centre on the policy of ‘Sarvjan Hitai Sarvjan Sukhai (for the benefit and happiness of all),” the BSP chief said.