The Samajwadi Party on Monday said it was waiting for an official statement from Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party after a number of reports said she was in favour of ending the alliance with the Akhilesh Yadav-led party and contesting Assembly bye-elections in Uttar Pradesh alone, PTI reported.
The two parties, once arch-rivals, contested the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in the state together in an effort to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party, but they won only 15 of the 80 seats between them. The BJP won 62 seats.
“No one has got the official stand of the BSP regarding the alliance,” Samajwadi Party’s chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told PTI. “We are waiting for an official statement.”
Earlier in the day, Mayawati held a meeting with her party’s Uttar Pradesh unit in New Delhi, where she reportedly told her party leaders that they should not depend on the alliance to get votes. She asked party workers to work on expanding the organisation.
Unidentified persons who were part of the meeting told PTI that Mayawati criticised the Samajwadi Party for failing to save its “family seats”. She also reportedly mentioned the family feud in the Samajwadi Party’s leadership, and added that it could not transfer its votes to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
“These are all hearsay,” Chaudhary told PTI. “What was the matter of discussion has to be understood.” He said Akhilesh Yadav will take a decision on the matter of alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party after returning to Lucknow from Azamgarh, which elected him to Parliament in the elections.
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