Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party President Mayawati has said that her party would contest the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand alone. In a series of tweets on Sunday, she ruled out reports that the BSP would join hands with Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM in Uttar Pradesh.
"This news is being circulated that the AIMIM and BSP will fight the upcoming assembly elections in UP together. This news is completely false, misleading and baseless. There is not even an iota of truth in this, and BSP vehemently denies it," she said. She further said that the BSP would like to clarify that, except for Punjab, the party will contest the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand alone.
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The BSP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have allied to contest the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections. The BSP, which stormed to power in 2007 by winning 206 seats, was left with just 80 seats in 2012. In 2014, Mayawati's party did not win a single Lok Sabha seat, and in the 2017 Uttar Assembly elections, it bagged only 19 seats. With BSP's support base dwindling over the years, the BJP and the Samajwadi Party have been trying to woo the Dalit voters ahead of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2022.
In April, Akhilesh Yadav announced that Samajwadi Party (SP) will constitute a Baba Saheb Vahini named after Dalit icon Dr B.R. Ambedkar. The Baba Saheb Vahini aims to bring Dalits into the Samajwadi fold and assure them protection against social exploitation. The BJP has now announced that it will build a memorial in the name of Ambedkar. The SP and BSP were allies in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, immediately after the Lok Sabha elections, Mayawati snapped ties with the party announcing that her party would never ally with SP again.
(PTI)
