LUCKNOW: Ten candidates -- eight of the BJP and one each of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) – were declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Meanwhile, BSP chief Mayawati reiterated her resolve to avenge defection allegedly driven by the SP in her party while coming clear on her statement over joining hands with the BJP.
While suspending all seven BSP MLAs for rebelling and withdrawing support to the party’s official candidate for Rajya Sabha elections, Mayawati had asserted that she would avenge the betrayal by the SP by ensuring the defeat of its candidate in the election for MLCs in the future by joining hands with any party including the BJP.
Set to script a new chapter of bitterness with foe-turned-friend-turned-foe again Samajwadi Party, Mayawati clarified that she never said that she would align with the BJP. “My statement has been misconstrued. I had said that I can join hand with any party even the BJP to defeat the SP candidate in MLC elections,” said BSP chief.
Elaborating further, she said she would prefer to take retirement from active politics instead of joining hands with the BJP which was a “communal and a casteist party”.
She said her party would never enter into an electoral alliance with the BJP as both the parties were placed on opposite poles in terms of ideologies. She reiterated that the BSP would never go along with the “communal and casteist BJP”.
"I will fight on all fronts with the communal, casteist and capitalist forces, and not going to bow before anyone," she added.
Having drawn attention over her October 29 statement that she might join hands with the BJP or any other party to defeat SP candidate in MLC polls, Mayawati’s clarification came to settle the speculations about her party’s possible truck with the BJP in the future. The BSP chief rushed to justify her
statement as a damage control step to keep her Muslim vote bank in good humour in the bypolls to seven assembly seats.
She even accused both the Congress and SP of misinterpreting her statement to draw the Muslim community away from her party. "The alliance of the BJP with the BSP is not possible in any polls in the future. The BSP cannot contest with the communal party," she said in a media briefing on Monday.
"Our ideology is of 'sarvajan sarva dharma hitay' (benefit of everyone and all religions)' and is opposite to the BJP's ideology," she said. "The BSP cannot enter into an alliance with those having communal, casteist, and capitalist ideology."
However, she did not mince words in reiterating that her party would ensure the defeat of the SP's second candidate in future Uttar Pradesh legislative council polls.
"Our party will support the candidate of any party, including the BJP, which is strong to defeat the second candidate of the SP," she said. "I stand by my earlier statement, which is misused by the SP and the Congress for political gains.”
She accused the SP and the Congress of trying to ensure that Muslims did not vote for the BSP in the bypolls to seven assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, adding that they would not be successful in this endeavour.
"Everyone knows that the BSP is a party of an ideology and movement. I never compromised it even when I formed the government with the BJP," Mayawati said, adding that she had "sacrificed" her government but never harmed the Muslim community.
"There was no Hindu-Muslim riots in my regime. History is witness to it. Under the SP and the Congress governments, there were scores of Hindu-Muslim riots," she said.
In order to reaffirm her pro-Muslim image, Mayawati claimed that she had always given adequate representation to the Muslims when her party was in power. She said even for the Assembly by-poll, she had given tickets to two candidates from the community.