(FE)
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Tuesday held Samajwadi Party squarely responsible for the poor show of the Mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections. Addressing the media in Lucknow, Mayawati also announced that her party will contest the bypolls in the state alone but did not rule out reuniting with the SP again. Asserting that the Samajwadi Party leadership failed to retain the Yadav votes and seats of Akhilesh Yadav’s family members, Mayawati said that she was “saddened by the loss of Samajwadi Party” and that they should learn about commitment and sacrifice from the BSP cadre.
Mayawati further said that she would consider reuniting with the SP, provided Akhilesh manages to make improvements within his party. However, she made it clear that since bringing about these changes will require time and that the dates for bypolls will be announced anytime soon, the BSP has decided to go it alone for now. The development is seen as a huge setback for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh that contested the general elections in an agreement to defeat the BJP. The alliance, however, won just 15 of the 80 parliamentary seats.
