A couple of days after the Samajwadi Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Singh Yadav ruled out any alliance with big parties in the upcoming Assembly election the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo, Mayawati, on Sunday (June 27) said that her party would go alone in the next February polls in UP and Uttarakhand.
Interestingly, early this month the BSP had announced that it would contest the Assembly poll in Punjab in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal.
While SAD would be contesting on 90 seats the BSP would field its candidates in 20 seats. The SAD had after the passage of three farm laws in September last year snapped its more than four decades long relationship with the BJP.
As the BSP has been showing softness towards the BJP, it was anticipated in political circles that Mayawati may go in alliance with the saffron party. But the BJP-BSP alliance, according to many UP watchers, may not have been possible because Mayawati would never have agreed to contest in a handful of seats. Obviously, the BSP would not like to be treated on par with Apna Dal or Nishad Party.
For the largest Dalit party in India, it would be a matter of survival as ever since 2012 it has repeatedly been losing elections, even though in 2019 Lok Sabha poll it contested in alliance with the Samajwadi Party.
On the other hand, Akhilesh had also made it clear that his party would not have any truck with the BSP or Congress and may fight the election in partnership with smaller parties. Akhilesh had also claimed that it is with the help of these small parties that the SP would be able to win 350 seats in the 403-member House.
