LUCKNOW: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati has trained her guns on the Samajwadi Party yet again on Thursday. Mayawati alleged that the party, led by Akhilesh Yadav, was trying to misguide people by spreading the perception that she wished to be the President of India which, she claimed, was far from reality.
"Today the SP people (Akhilesh Yadav) are dreaming of making me the President, which they should forget. They want this so that the way is cleared for them to become UP CM which is not possible. The Muslims and Yadavs of UP have also seen by giving their votes that even after forming an alliance with many parties, the SP could not form the government. So now these people will support BSP to form the next government," she claimed, while issuing a statement to the media on Thursday.
While talking about perceptions, Mayawati said that there was a lot of buzz that the SP chief might flee the country.
Akhilesh Yadav had recently said Mayawati wanted to become the President and that is why she transferred her vote to the BJP in the recently-concluded Assembly elections.
The BSP chief in turn claimed that the SP was hand-in-glove with the ruling BJP in promoting polarization. She also held Akhilesh Yadav's party responsible for the alleged atrocities against Muslims.
"The Samajwadi Party is responsible for atrocities on Muslims today. Both SP and BJP are hand in gloves and they should stop spreading rumours now. If Dalits and Muslims come together then I can see the dream of becoming the CM of UP or maybe the PM, but I can never think about becoming the President," said the BSP chief in the statement.
Interestingly, earlier on Thursday morning BSP national General Secretary and Rajya Sabha member SC Mishra and the party's lone MLA from Rasra Umashankar Singh held a meeting with UP CM Yogi Adityanath at his official residence.
Asked about the meeting, the BSP chief said, "The monuments, which were built in the memory of Dalit icons, are being ignored. Their maintenance is not done properly even if a bulb gets fused, it is not replaced. I want to demand the proper maintenance of monuments by the BJP government. My letter in this regard was submitted to the UP CM by BSP's SC Mishra."
In the 2022 UP assembly elections, while SP emerged as the single opposition party after taking its tally to 111 from 47, BSP faced a total rout with its tally coming down to one from the 19 seats it had won in 2017. The Congress, which is considered to be a non-entity in the state now, fared better than the BSP in terms of seats as two of its candidates made it to the assembly.
In terms of vote share, while the BSP secured 12.58 per cent votes, Congress won two seats with just 2.33 per cent vote share.