A few days after Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati said she would vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) if it means defeating Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates, she said she would ‘rather retire from politics’ than enter into an alliance with the BJP.
"The alliance of the BJP with the BSP is not possible in any polls in the future. The BSP cannot contest with a communal party," she said today in a media briefing, PTI reported.
"Our ideology is of 'sarvajan sarva dharma hitay' (benefit of everyone and all religions) and is opposite to the BJP's ideology...The BSP cannot enter into an alliance with those having a communal, casteist, and capitalist ideology."
She however, continued to say that she will support any candidate, including that of the BJP, to defeat the Samajwadi Party. "I stand by my earlier statement, which has been twisted by the SP and the Congress for political gains so that the Muslim community distances itself from the party," she said.
These statements follow a series of digs between the BSP and SP. Last week, the SP had attacked Mayawati for allegedly siding with the BJP and fielding a candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls without seeking support from opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh. This was after Mayawati had suspended seven BSP MLAs for anti-party activities after they opposed the nomination of a party candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
It was during speculation that these suspended MLAs would switch sides that Mayawati had said that to ensure the SP candidate’s defeat in future MLC polls, her party will even vote for the BJP or any other party’s nominee, NDTV reported.
In recent times, media reports have often suggested the BSP's softening of stance against the BJP. UP Congress chief Ajay Lallu had even gone to the extent of reportedly saying that the "BSP is soon going to merge with the BJP".
The BSP and SP had formed an alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. However, within weeks of the BJP sweeping the national polls, Mayawati announced in June 2019 that her party's alliance with the SP had been terminated.
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