New Delhi: BSP supremo Mayawati on Monday announced a “permanent break” between her party and the Samajwadi Party and said the BSP will fight all future elections “small and big” on its own, putting the final seal on her divorce from the alliance with the Samajwadi Party that was formed before the Lok Sabha polls.
The dalit czarina announced her decision to go solo in a series of tweets shortly after which a senior SP leader accused her of “weakening” the fight for social justice.
While the BSP managed to increase its Lok Sabha tally from zero in 2014 to 10 this time, the SP managed to get only five seats, the same that it had in the last Parliament. The SP also suffered humiliating defeats in Badaun, Kannauj and Firozabad, where its sitting MPs and members of its ruling family lost.
“Everyone is aware that forgetting everything of the past as also anti-BSP and anti-dalit decisions like reservations in promotions and bad law and order during SP rule in 2012-17, the BSP adhered to the ‘gathbandhan dharma’ with the Samajwadi Party in the interest of the country,” Ms Mayawati tweeted in Hindi.
“But the SP’s attitude after the election has forced the BSP to think: ‘Will it be possible to defeat the BJP in the future? This is not possible”,” she said, and added: “Therefore, in the interests of the party and the movement, the party will contest all small and big elections on its own strength.”
She did not, however, elaborate on what she meant by the SP’s attitude.
Ms Mayawati’s announcement came a day after she held a meeting with party workers to review the BSP’s performance in the recent Lok Sabha polls where she had made certain organisational changes by inducting her nephew and brother.
Soon after this, Samajwadi Party general secretary Ramashankar Vidyarthi told the media that Ms Mayawati was speaking against the SP in haste because of the dalit support to his party and its leader Akhilesh Yadav. “She is weakening the fight for social justice,” he said.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal, a minor partner in the grand alliance, said it had nothing to do with Monday’s developments. It said the RLD was in alliance with the Samajwadi Party and not the BSP.
The BSP-SP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls failed to make an impact in the politically crucial state. Many leaders in the Opposition had banked on the caste arithmetic of Yadavs and dalits to keep the BJP away from power.
