Yogi Terms BSP-SP Pact as Coming Together of ‘Snake & Mongoose’

The bypolls for the Gorakhpur seat vacated by Adityanath after taking over as CM will be held on 11 March.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has called Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) announcement of understanding with Samajwadi Party to defeat BJP in Gorakhpur bypolls as the “coming together of snake and mongoose”, NDTV reported on Monday, 5 March.

A minister in Adityanath’s cabinet, Srikanth Sharma had earlier called this an ‘act of desperation by those discarded by people.’

Senior Congress senior Dalit leade PL Punia criticized the the alliance stating that “every influential member of the Dalit community was questioning it”.

The by-elections for the Gorakhpur seat vacated by CM Yogi Adityanath when he took over as the chief minster will be held on Sunday, 11 March.

I am hearing about the coming together of these two parties. It is as if when a storm appears the snake and the mongoose come together. They are in such a situation now.

Yogi Adityanath, at a rally on Monday, as quoted by NDTV

BSP made the announcement of supporting Samajwadi Party candidates in both Gorakhpur and Phulpur on Sunday.

After the announcement, speculations started coming in if this would lead to an experiment like Bihar where regional rivals have come together to take on BJP ahead of the 2019 elections.

This is not the first time BSP and SP will be coming together. The two parties partnered in the 1993 assembly elections to counter BJP itself where they formed a coalition government but it fell only two years later.  

BSP has not fielded any candidate from Phulpur and Gorakhpur, but this does not mean that party workers will not cast their votes. They will in fact exercise their voting rights appropriately... As per my earlier directives, the BSP workers will vote for a candidate who will be in a position to defeat the BJP, and there is nothing wrong in it.

Mayawati, explaining the agreement with SP, as quoted by NDTV

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