‘Ready To Fight Alone’: Akhilesh After Mayawati Confirms Break-Up

In a meeting with party leaders, Mayawati reportedly took a decision to go solo in the upcoming UP bypolls.

Sources suggest the SP-BSP alliance may soon cease to exist.

(Photo: Erum Gour / The Quint)

A day after Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati announced that her party will fight the upcoming bypolls in Uttar Pradesh alone, Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday, 5 June, said “sometimes you don't succeed in trials but you get to know about weaknesses.”

Speaking to the reporters in Lucknow, Yadav said, “I have been a science student and there are trails and sometimes they fail. But at least you realise what the shortcomings were.”

Yadav also said that if the party contests the bypolls alone then he will discuss the matter with all the leaders about the future strategy.

BSP Will Fight the Bypolls Alone: Mayawati

Mayawati had announced on Tuesday that her party will fight the upcoming bypolls in Uttar Pradesh alone, adding that it is however not a “permanent break up” with the Samajwadi Party.

Addressing the media, Mayawati said that the decision was taken in a meeting of the party leaders on Monday.

She blamed the Samajwadi Party for not being able to transfer ‘Yadav votes’ even in their bastions. She also said that her party will wait for Samajwadi Party to improve its performance, before taking a final decision on the alliance.

“If we feel in future that SP Chief is succeeding in his political work, we will again work together. But if he doesn’t succeed, it will be good for us to work separately,” she said, referring to Akhilesh Yadav.

Reportedly Mayawati also referred to the alliance as “useless” and said that the Yadav votes were not transferred to them.

According to NDTV, she also said that even (Akhilesh Yadav's) own family didn't win the Yadav votes.

On Monday, rumours had already started doing the rounds about the split in the alliance, following BSP’s meeting.

Akhilesh had then said that the two parties will fight together for social justice.

"We and Bahujan Samaj Party will fight for social justice together," said Yadav, addressing a public meeting in Azamgarh during his first visit to the constituency after declaration of the Lok Sabha poll results.

“The BSP will fight the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh alone,” sources had told The Quint on Monday, adding that Mayawati, in the meeting, held Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav responsible for shifting a section of Yadav votes towards the BJP.

Shivpal, who had floated his own Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSPL) last year after a prolonged feud with Akhilesh Yadav, contested separately in a number of seats, in the state.

As many as 11 seats of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly will go to bypolls, as the respective MLAs fought on Lok Sabha tickets and got elected.

‘SP-BSP Alliance Was Bound to Collapse as Leaders Came Together Only to Save Their Families’: BJP

The BJP, on Tuesday, ridiculed the two parties’ call to part ways within a fortnight after the Lok Sabha election results, saying it was bound to happen as their leaders had formed the alliance “to save their own families and hide acts of corruption”.

“The voters rejected outright the casteist and opportunistic politics of these two parties,” UP BJP spokesperson Hero Bajpai told PTI.

Alleging that SP-BSP alliance was a 'thagbandhan' to dupe people, UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey said, “Voters called their bluff. It was an opportunistic alliance forged to save their own families and hide acts of corruption. The alliance never had any vision or thoughts and had nothing to do for the welfare of the public.”

Speaking in the same vein, UP Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma said it was the main reason why the alliance "died", PTI reported.

"The main reason for the alliance of SP and BSP falling apart is that it followed the mantra of 'apna swaarth, apna vikaas', unlike the mantra of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas’ given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This was an opportunistic alliance, and it was bound to fall apart," he said.

Akhilesh Defends Alliance, Blames BJP, Media for Poor Performance

Akhilesh Yadav, however, defended the poll performance of the alliance, saying that the Lok Sabha poll battle this time was of a different kind, which he could not understand.

“It was a race between Ferrari and a cycle (the SP’s election symbol). Everybody knew the Ferrari will win. The Lok Sabha elections were not fought on issues, it was fought on something else,” said Yadav.

The SP chief also subtly blamed media for his party poor performance in the polls.

"Tell me who was seen on televisions everyday? They penetrated into our brains. They played with our minds with TV and mobile phones. This was a different kind of battle, which we could not understand. The day we understand this, we will emerge victorious," he said.

Before Akhilesh Yadav's public meeting in Azamgarh, an SP spokesperson said the party was "waiting" for the BSP's "official stand" on whether to continue with the alliance or not.

“No one has got the official stand of the BSP regarding the alliance. We are waiting for an official statement,” SP chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told PTI earlier.

The SP-BSP gathbandhan which raised a lot of hopes in the Opposition camp ahead of the elections, failed to wrest the BJP tide as the saffron party, along with its ally Apna Dal won 62 seats in the state.

The Samajwadi Party which won five seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, failed to add to its tally. Even Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav and two cousins Akshay and Dharmendra Yadav lost their seats. The BSP which failed to win a single seat in 2014, on the other hand, now has 12 MPs in the Lok Sabha.

Conceding that his party's "opponents are very strong", the former UP chief minister said he would try to counter them through social alliance.

"Our party may have lost the elections, but we throw an open challenge to rival parties that they compare the developmental works done during their regime with those done in our tenure. Their work will not be able to stand in front of ours," he said.

‘Only BSP Benefitted From Alliance’: SP MLA

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party MLA Hariom Yadav reacted to Mayawati’s statement, saying only BSP benefited from the alliance.

“Only Mayawati got benefited from the coalition, Samajwadi Party faced huge losses. If the coalition hadn’t happened, Mayawati would have been at 0 and SP would have won 25 seats. Yadav community voted for her but Behen Ji’s vote share went to BJP,” he said.

(With inputs from PTI and NDTV)