Setback For Akhilesh As Mayawati Says BSP Will Not Take Part In Next UP Bypolls

The Samajwadi Party, which has been hoping for a repeat of the Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls magic holding hands with the BSP, has to contest the byelections for Kairana parliamentary and Noorpur assembly seats alone in the coming months. 

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati has announced that she would not activate her party cadres for any of the upcoming byelections in Uttar Pradesh as she will concentrate on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, reported The Times of India.

“The BSP will not activate its cadres in any bypoll in future, the way it did it in Gorakhpur and Phulpur,” the party said in a press statement issued after a meeting between Mayawati and BSP’s district and zonal coordinators.

"The Lok Sabha polls of 2019 are approaching and so we want to concentrate on that. In any Lok Sabha bypoll or otherwise in the interim, we will not ask our workers to leave everything and work for the bypolls for anyone else," NDTV reported quoting Mayawati.

The press statement came in the wake of Mayawati’s reiteration on multiple occasions since Saturday that the Rajya Sabha result would not have an impact on the closeness between the SP and the BSP.

In the Rajya Sabha polls, the BSP candidate managed 32 votes but still lost to BJP.

SP chief  Akhilesh Yadav, who had cancelled a function to felicitate party leader Jaya Bachchan on getting re-elected to the Rajya Sabha, felt the defeat of the Dalit candidate would cement his party's relations with Mayawati-led BSP.

Mayawati, however, again made it clear on Monday that her "friendship" with the Samajwadi Party would continue. Mayawati met the party's coordinators to apprise them of "new strategy" to defeat the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, party leaders told PTI.

The BSP chief told senior party leaders in a closed door meeting that they must work wholeheartedly to defeat the BJP in the parliamentary elections, barely a year away.

Discussing the changing social and political equations in Uttar Pradesh with her party's leaders, she said they would be able to fulfil the dream of a "welfare government" if the poor, neglected and oppressed come together and use their last weapon - their vote - to grab the master-key of power.

It was against this backdrop that she stressed the necessity for an alliance or an understanding and asked party leaders to foil the BJP's efforts to drive a wedge in the new found equation with the SP, a party insider said after the meeting.

The BSP chief directed coordinators not to be disheartened with the defeat in the Rajya Sabha elections and said the BJP's defeat in the key Lok Sabha seats of Gorakhpur and Phulpur had made the saffron party nervous.

Mayawati indicated that the BSP's future strategy would be chalked out after a final decision on an alliance but asked the party's leaders to continue their efforts to defeat the BJP by highlighting the shortcomings of both the Centre and the state government.

According to a party leader, she asked for feedback on how opposition parties felt about firming up an alliance against the BJP.

"The BSP's close ties with the Samajwadi Party are not for any selfish motive but in the national interest," she told the media earlier in the day, emphasising that opposition parties will have to work jointly to stop the BJP from coming to power at the Centre.