SP sticks to its guns, doesn’t want BSP in INDIA bloc

Lucknow

The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Saturday reiterated that it was against the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) joining the bloc of 28 Opposition parties, a day after Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai urged BSP president Mayawati to “seriously consider” joining the grouping.

The BSP has maintained a distance from the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

“There had been some speculation in the past about the BSP joining the alliance. At the fourth meeting of INDIA, our chief national general secretary, Ram Gopal Yadav, had very clearly and emphatically expressed that the SP will not accept the entry of the BSP into the bloc,” said Javed Ali Khan, Rajya Sabha member and SP’s representative in the bloc’s coordination committee.

He added that none of the Congress leaders earlier opposed SP’s stance against BSP’s inclusion in INDIA.

“What is strange that none of the top leaders of the Congress ever broached the subject (of BSP joining INDIA) in any of the four meetings. But the Congress is a huge party and it has all kinds of people. Some people in the Congress can’t tolerate the SP. Ajay Rai has a BJP background. And the Congress must take cognizance of his remarks,” he added.

On Friday, Rai said that BSP should join INDIA keeping in mind the current situation in the country.

“Given the current political scenario in the country and the condition of Dalits, BSP chief Mayawati should seriously consider joining the INDIA alliance,” he said.

Rai’s comment came the day after Mayawati indicated to newspersons in Lucknow about keeping the doors open to join the INDIA bloc.

“In future, no one knows when an alliance or party will need the support of the other party in the interest of the people and country,” the BSP chief said at a press conference on Thursday.

The ties between the two members of INDIA grouping came under strain during the Madhya Pradesh elections with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav targeting Congress for not getting into a seat-sharing pact with them. The SP contested 69 of MP’s 230 seats but did not win any. The Congress bagged 66 seats, finishing a distant second to the BJP.

UP Congress leader and spokesperson CP Rai said: “Ajay Raiji is right. In the current scenario, the issue is not who is acceptable or not acceptable to anyone. The issue is to defeat the BJP to save democracy and the Constitution. It is the need of the hour that anyone who has even the slightest capability to lend a helping hand in defeating the BJP and Uttar Pradesh is the most important state towards that goal. It is obvious that if in UP, the SP, Congress, RLD and the BSP join hands, then the BJP could be restricted to only about a dozen seats of the 80 in UP.”

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had allied with BSP chief Mayawati for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in an attempt to prevent the BJP from retaining power at the Centre. But the alliance had failed to click at the hustings. The SP could not win more than five seats (its 2014 tally) while the BSP that had not won any seats in 2014 won 10 seats in 2019. Immediately after the 2019 results, Mayawati had snapped ties with the SP, holding Akhilesh responsible for the poll results.