BJP smells attempts to 'orchestrate communal riots' in UP as Qaumi Ekta Dal merges with SP

'...The SP wants to win polls with the help of criminals, rioters and gangsters...' said BJP secretary Shrikant Sharma.

NEW DELHI: With the elections in Uttar Pradesh round the corner, don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s political outfit Qaumi Ekta Dal on Wednesday merged with the Samajwadi Party, drawing flak from the BJP, which termed the development as the “height of votebank and appeasement politics”.

“This merger is the height of votebank and appeasement politics. The SP wants to win polls with the help of criminals, rioters and gangsters. It wants to throw the state into communal fire and orchestrate communal riots,” said BJP secretary Shrikant Sharma. “People had voted for Samajwadi Party to get the state rid of corruption and crime which was prevalent during the BSP rule. The Akhilesh government has failed on all fronts and ‘goondaraj’ is everywhere. It’s become SP’s practice to shelter criminals and seek their support,” he said, referring to the Mathura violence and the Kairana migration.

Meanwhile, senior BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya (in photo) quit the Mayawati-led party, saying election tickets were on sale in the party. “Tickets are being openly auctioned by Mayawati on a large scale. She is not making the right choice of candidates,” Maurya said at a hurriedly convened press conference here. “I feel suffocated and can’t continue in the party anymore. I’ve written a letter informing her (Mayawati) that I am relinquishing all party posts,” he said.

Speculation is rife that he may join the SP and get a ministerial berth. Mayawati was quick to slam Maurya as a “habitual party-hopper”.

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