Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav announced their tie-up for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on Saturday. Both the parties will contest on 38 seats each, while two seats will be left for other parties.
Mayawati while addressing the media briefing stated, “The BSP-SP alliance will bring sleepless nights for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.”
However, senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters on the sidelines of the party's ongoing National Council Meeting in New Delhi that, "The SP and BSP have allied neither for the country nor for Uttar Pradesh but for their survival. They know they cannot fight Prime Minister Narendra Modi on their own and their opposition to him is the sole base of their alliance."
Prasad further rejected the claims made by BSP chief Mayawati and SP president Akhilesh Yadav that their coming together will have a major impact on the parliamentary poll results. "Elections are not about mathematics but chemistry," he said.
These remarks were made by Prasad just after Mayawati and Yadav announced their alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, sharing 38 seats each out of the state's 80 parliamentary constituencies.
On the other hand, BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya termed the SP-BSP joining hands as an "alliance of corruption and goondaism."
At the national convention he said, "Let me make it clear that people are solidly behind Modi and the BJP will do better than it did in 2014. The backward community is backing Modi."
Though, West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee today welcomed the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
She tweeted, "I welcome the alliance of the SP and the BSP for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections."
Banerjee had earlier suggested that an SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh would wipe out the BJP from the crucial North Indian state, that sends 80 MPs to the lower house of the Parliament.
Interestingly, the Congress is not part of the alliance, but Mayawati said that they will not field candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi respectively.
Not to forget, the two parties are reuniting after 26 years to take on the BJP which won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014.
