SP leaders hit back at Mayawati after BSP ends alliance

India वोट Kar | June 5, 2019

Voices of contradiction rise in SP against Mayawati

Samajwadi Party leaders began speaking out against Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati after the BSP broke off its alliance with the SP on Tuesday, according to a report from Lucknow on June 5.

Ram Gopal Yadav’s rebuttal

Senior SP MP Ram Gopal Yadav said the SP was a bigger party than the BSP, and that without Yadav votes the BSP would have ended up with only four or five seats. He said Mayawati had been misinformed by her candidates that Yadavs did not vote for them. He said he had toured the state during the election, heard no such complaints anywhere, and had seen SP and BSP workers campaigning for each other’s candidates. It was therefore wrong to say the BSP did not get SP votes, he argued.

Other voices

Aparna Yadav, younger daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav, said she was pained by Mayawati’s statements and posted a couplet on Twitter suggesting that those who cannot digest respect cannot digest disrespect either. She is seen as part of the Shivpal Yadav camp and had lost the 2017 Assembly election from Lucknow Cantt as the SP candidate. She later told reporters it was wrong to blame the SP for the poll debacle.

SP MLA Hari Om Yadav said it was the SP that had lost out in the alliance. Contesting alone, he claimed, the SP would have won 25 seats and the BSP none, and Mayawati should be grateful to the SP for her 10 seats.

Other SP legislators said the alliance never took root at the grassroots, which hurt the party. A lawmaker from central Uttar Pradesh said they had set aside past hostility to back the BSP but had ended up as losers, and would share their views with the party president.