Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said his party will fight for social justice along with the Bahujan Samaj Party, just hours after BSP chief Mayawati reportedly blamed the Samajwadi Party for the “poor performance” of the alliance, PTI reported.

“We and Bahujan Samaj Party will fight for social justice together,” said Yadav while addressing a public meeting in his constituency Azamgarh. “It [elections] was a race between Ferrari and a cycle [Samajwadi Party’s election symbol],” Yadav said with reference to the Bharatiya Janata Party. “Everybody knew the Ferrari will win. The Lok Sabha elections were not fought on issues, it was fought on something else.”

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Yadav’s comments came after a spokesperson of the Samajwadi Party said they were waiting for an official statement from Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party amid reports that she was in favour of ending the alliance and contesting Assembly bye-elections in Uttar Pradesh alone.

The two parties, once arch-rivals, contested the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in the state together in an effort to defeat the BJP, but they won only 15 of the 80 seats between them. The BJP won 62 seats.

Yadav said the 2019 Lok Sabha elections were a “different kind of battle”. “Tell me who was seen on televisions everyday?” he asked. “They penetrated into our brains. They played with our minds with TV and mobile phones. This was a different kind of battle, which we could not understand. The day we understand this, we will emerge victorious.”

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Earlier on Monday, Mayawati had 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.

Mayawati reportedly said that Akhilesh Yadav “couldn’t even ensure his wife Dimple Yadav’s win”, according to NDTV. “Our votes transferred to Dimple but the Yadav votes didn’t,” Mayawati reportedly said. “Yadav votes were not transferred to us but our votes did go to them. Samajwadi Party won only where Muslims voted heavily for them.”