Maya ends campaign, confident of winning
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati is back in the city after having completed electioneering though her rivals continued to toil on the campaign trail on the second last day for seeking votes in the UP assembly elections.
She monitored preparations for polling in 40 assembly constituencies on March 8 and gathered feedback from senior leaders about 363 assembly constituencies that have already gone to poll in six phases of the sevenphase election. Confident of a comeback, Mayawati thanked the voters, party workers and office bearers for their support.
The BSP chief launched her campaign with a public meeting in Meerut on February 1 and concluded it in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Saturday. In these 32 days, she addressed 53 public meetings across the state, attacking both the PM and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
“Modi is trying to polarise the voters after he failed to fulfil the promise of achhe din (good days). The SP government promoted jungle raj with the state being in the grip of lawlessness. Only the BSP government will free the state of goons and the mafiosi,” she said at her rallies.
She claimed there was a tacit understanding between the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Modi is acting like an uncle of Akhilesh. Time has come when the people should get rid of the chacha-bhatija (uncle- nephew) government at the centre as well as the state,” she said.
Her attack on the Congress was mild. Only on a few occasions did she target Rahul Gandhi. Fearing that the Congress alliance with the SP might cut into the Muslim vote bank, she had urged the Congress leadership to be cautious of going into a pre-poll alliance with the SP in January before Akhilesh and Rahul had joined hands.