Tejashwi backs SP-BSP pact, says UP, Bihar will sink BJP
LUCKNOW: The Centre’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will suffer huge setbacks in the key Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav said after meeting Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on Monday.
The RJD vice-president, who met Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati on Sunday night and congratulated her for her alliance with the SP, stressed that he had no doubt that the BJP will be wiped out from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the two states that played a major role in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s landslide victory in 2014.
“The SP-BSP alliance has sent a message across the country,” Tejashwi said at a joint press conference with Akhilesh, adding that the coalition of the erstwhile rivals would go down in history as a big step in Indian politics. Efforts are under way in the Opposition camp to stitch up state-specific alliances to take on the BJP in the general elections this summer.
Further, the BJP’s losses in three key states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in December have buoyed the bloc.
In Bihar, the RJD has formed an alliance with the Congress, and erstwhile BJP allies, Hindustani Awami Morcha and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party. In Uttar Pradesh, the BSP and the SP have joined hands, declaring they will contest 38 each.
They, however, have kept the Congress, which plans to contest all 80 seats in the state, out of the fold.
“Uttar Pradesh and Bihar together have 120 seats (80+40), and if you add Jharkhand’s 14 seats, that’s 134 seats that the BJP will not be able to win in the Lok Sabha elections. Together, the three states will account for at least a 100-seat loss for the BJP,” Tejashwi said.
In 2014, the BJP alone won 71 seats in UP and 22 in Bihar. In tribal-dominated Jharkhand, it won 12 seats. These three states contributed 105 of the total 282 seats that the BJP won in the general elections, forming a government at the Centre with a comfortable majority.
Lauding the SP-BSP alliance, Tejashwi reiterated that his father, Lalu Prasad, had dreamt of such a partnership. “This alliance will fight the dangers that the country is facing and will defeat the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] agenda. I congratulate Mayawatiji and Akhilesh ji on forging this alliance in the national interest,” he said.
“The Samajwadi Party and the BSP are enough to beat Modi, the by-elections are also an indication of it,” Tejashwi said, referring to at least three Lok Sabha bypolls where a tactical understanding between the UP parties ensured the BJP’s defeat last year.
Tejashwi also said the only reason his father, Lalu Prasad, was in jail is because “Modiji saw him as a threat”. Lalu Prasad, who is lodged in a Jharkhand prison in a corruption case, felt the need for alliances of regional parties in the wake of the BJP’s resounding victories in 2014, Tejashwi said on Sunday.
The RJD even allied with rival Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) for 2015’s Bihar assembly elections, and their alliance trounced the BJP. Nitish, however, broke ties with the so-called “grand alliance” and joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in 2017.
At his press conference with Akhilesh, Tejashwi launched an attack on the BJP government led by Modi, saying the atmosphere in the country was becoming vitiated.
Akhilesh, too, hit out at the Prime Minister, stressing that “there are no jobs” in the country and that people across India snan’ between 5.15am and 6.15 am, Niranjani and Anand Akhadas would perform ‘shahi snan’ between 6.06am and 7.05 am, Nirmohi Akhada between 9.40am and 10.40 am, Digamber Akhada between 10.20 am and 11.20 am, Nirvani Akhada between 11.20 am and 12.20pm, Naya Udasin Akhada between 12.15pm and 1.15pm, Bada Udasin Akhada between 1.20pm and 2.20pm besides Nirmal Akhada between 2.40pm and 3.40pm respectively.