Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Monday said the party will contest all elections on its own in the future, while accusing the Samajwadi Party of “anti-Dalit and anti-BSP decisions” when it was in power.
Mayawati’s remarks on Twitter came a day after the party’s all-India national convention in Lucknow. Mayawati said the all-India meeting lasted for more than two hours, following which state-wise meetings went on till late night “without media presence”.
“The remarks about BSP chief that have still been flashed in the media are not entirely correct, even though we had issued a press note about this,” she said on Twitter. Reports quoting sources had said that Mayawati had called Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav “anti-Muslim” and that injustice was done to non-Yadavs and Dalits when Yadav was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati had reportedly said that Yadav did not call her after the alliance’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha polls last month.
“It’s well-known that we ignored our old complaints with the SP [Samajwadi Party], as well as their anti-Dalit and anti-BSP decisions, their opposition to reservations in promotions, and poor law and order etc when they were in power in 2012-17, and we fulfilled our alliance duties with them in public interest,” she said.
Mayawati said the Samajwadi Party’s behaviour towards her party after the 2019 General Elections “forces one to wonder if by doing this, will it be possible to defeat the BJP in the future?” “It is not,” she said. “Therefore, in interest of party and the movement, BSP will fight all small and big elections on its own in the future.”
Samajwadi Party’s response
Samajwadi Party leader Ramashankar Vidyarthi said Mayawati’s decision to contest elections alone will “weaken” the fight for social justice. “She is speaking against the Samajwadi Party in haste and due to the Dalit support to the SP and its leader Akhilesh Yadav,” Vidyarthi was quoted as saying by PTI. “She is weakening the fight for social justice.”
The Samajwadi Party National General Secretary said the ‘Dalit samaj’ [Dalit community] is connecting with the Samajwadi Party and Akhilesh Yadav in a big way. “People know the reality about what the malkin [master] of the alliance has done,” he added.
Earlier this month, Mayawati had called off the alliance with Samajwadi Party for the Assembly bye-elections. 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.
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