Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, the two big political forces in UP came together in an alliance today to take on Narendra Modi in the general elections in three months now. The alliance has been a much-talked-about subject in the political circle for some time. And its formal announcement came today in Lucknow. SP and BSP the political outfits of Akhilesh and Mayawati respectively will have equal terms in the alliance. They shared 38 seats each between themselves; left two seats for other junior partners and spared Amethi and Raebareli for Congress. However, they did not feel like worth taking the grand old party with them.
In a joint presser, the BSP boss Mayawati said, “It has been decided that BSP and SP will contest 38 seats each.” She declared that they would give sleepless moments to the BJP leadership. “To defeat the arrogance of BJP it was necessary for SP-BSP to come together,” said Akhilesh Yadav.
On not including Congress in the alliance, Mayawati reasoned that Congress’ votes do not transfer to SP-BSP and they would not gain much by going with Congress.
Congress was with SP in the last state election.
The alliance will go beyond this election and in the state elections after that, assured Mayawati though the two parties share a past of bitter animosity between them.
SP and BSP enjoy a huge command over the OBC and Dalit vote blocks in UP. So they have strategically joined hand to consolidate the votes against BJP, the party that had drubbed them in the 2014 general elections and in the subsequent state election.
SP, as well as BSP, are two political powerhouses in UP on their own merit but after they were trounced in the 2014 general election and in the 2017 state election they experimented with alliance formula in Phulpur, Gorakhpur, and Kairana, which proved a success. That success encouraged them to apply the formula in the big fight.
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