LUCKNOW: The SP-BSP gathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh has collapsed as both Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav announced to go alone in the Assembly bypolls.
On Tuesday, hours after BSP chief Mayawati suggested her party could fight all the 11 Assembly seats by itself, SP president Akhilesh Singh retorted he would have no problems and the SP would put up its own candidates.
“If the alliance ends, we will field SP candidates on all 11 seats up for bypolls after consulting party leaders soon,” Akhilesh Yadav said, adding, “Even if our paths are different, we welcome it.”
He said for the SP, the killing of its workers was more important than the gathbandhan. The bypolls were necessitated after the MLAs representing the 11 seats were elected to the Lok Sabha.
Mayawati had made the first move towards break-up when at a review meeting in Delhi, she told her party leaders that the SP leadership had failed to transfer its votes to the BSP.
“Akhilesh could not even ensure that his wife Dimple won Kannauj,” she reportedly said.SP leaders at their meeting, in turn, blamed the alliance with the BSP for the defeat, saying while SP’s Yadav and Muslim votes were transferred to the BSP, Dalit votes did not pitch for the ally.
Even party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav rebuked Akhilesh for not heeding to his warning of not having any truck with the BSP.
Mayawati, however, said she could still work with the SP in future if Yadav is able to “fulfill his duties”.
“If I feel that the SP president is able to fulfill his duties and convert his people into missionaries, then we can still walk together in future. If Akhilesh is unable to succeed in his task, it will be better for the party to walk alone. There has been no permanent break as of now. I will try the alliance survives. On the other hand, political compulsions cannot be ignored completely and everyone knows that,” Mayawati told the media.
She added, “Bypolls can be announced any moment now. Under current conditions in Uttar Pradesh, we have decided to fight the bypolls all alone.”
The two parties had entered an alliance ahead of the LS polls and had contested 37 and 38 seats under a seat-sharing formula based on caste arithmetic, leaving three to the RLD and two to the Congress.