UP polls: No post-poll ties with BJP, says Mayawati

Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati Tuesday said she will neither give nor take support from the BJP if her party fell short of numbers in Uttar Pradesh.

“Whether I form government or not, I will not ally with the BJP in any case. I will never betray Muslims who have voted in large number for the Bahujan Samaj Partys,” she said at a rally in Kanpur.

Her statement came on the eve of polling for the second phase of elections. Media reports had said minorities voted for the BSP in the first phase.

Ms Mayawati said the Bharatiya Janata Party has been spreading rumours on social media about a possible alliance between BJP and BSP.

She said she quit the BJP-BSP alliance in 2003 when the former’s leaders asked her to continue the alliance in the Lok Sabha elections.

“They told me that I could continue as chief minister and support them in the Lok Sabha, but I refused,” she said.

“BJP leaders threatened to install Mulayam Singh Yadav as chief minister. That was when I decided to resign because I was not afraid of Mulayam Singh becoming chief minister,” Ms Mayawati said. She said the BJP threatened her with a Central Bureau of Investigation probe, and even took away the money she had kept for the treatment of her mentor, Kanshi Ram. “How can I ever forgive the BJP for this?” she said.

The BSP chief said the party got “wholehearted” support of voters in the first phase of polling. “BSP is going to form government with maximum number of seats and the BJP is heading for a washout. This is clear from the expressions of BJP president Amit Shah after the first phase. In the coming phases, the BJP will be washed out completely,” she said.

Ms Mayawati said the BJP was responsible for the suicide of University of Hyderabad student Rohith Vemula, and the assault on dalits in Gujarat’s Una town. She said the BJP will end reservation if it came to power.

She said the Akhilesh Yadav government believes in “less work, more crime”, adding that the incidents in Dadri (lynching of a Muslim man), Bulandshahr (highway loot and gangrape) and Pratapgarh (murder of a senior police officer) reflected the kind of government that the Samajwadi Party has been running for the last five years.

The factional war in the SP will ensure that their supporters work toward defeating each other in the elections, she added. She asked Muslims not to waste their votes on SP, but to vote for BSP and ensure a secure future.