Mayawati says alliance only if BSP gets respectable seat share
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Sunday said she would join an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) front of opposition parties only if she got a “respectable” number of seats, while dismissing Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar as a stooge of the ruling party.
“If I do not get a respectable share of seats, then I could even contest alone,” she said, sending a message to opposition parties planning an anti-BJP coalition.
Mayawati claimed Chandrashekhar, who was arrested last year following caste violence in Saharanpur, was out to split Dalit votes at the BJP’s behest. The claim came two days after Chandrashekhar referred to Mayawati as his “bua (aunt)” following his release from jail two months before he was to be freed. Chandrashekhar, who belongs to Jatav sub-caste of Dalits, like Mayawati, had vowed to uproot the BJP at the centre.
“For political reasons, some people are trying to relate to me. I want to clear that I have no such bua-bhatija (aunt-nephew) or bhai-behan (brother-sister) relationship,’’ she said. “If he is indeed a well-wisher, he would have come to me to fight the BJP together rather than floating his own outfit,” she said.
Mayawati said her larger relationship is with Dalits and tribals, who have stood by her through thick and thin. “Over the years, various organisations have been floated for narrow personal interests... their leaders say something to people in public and do exactly the opposite.”
Mayawati’s precondition for the alliance has enthused the BJP strategists, who have been keeping a close watch on her announcements. “It is evident that all is not well in the opposition camp...Her repeated assertion that she could contest alone is a pressure tactic...,” said a BJP strategist on condition of anonymity.
Mayawati, for her part, accused the BJP of politicising former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s death. “Those, who are now making a big show of Vajpayee’s death, never followed in his footsteps during his lifetime.”
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