Akhilesh fuels buzz on BSP-BJP alliance to prevent vote split among Muslims

 As the campaign peaks for the first two phases of Assembly elections, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday made a bid to keep the Muslim vote bank intact by fuelling a buzz that the BJP and BSP will join hands after the results are announced on March 11.

BSP leaders say that the SP is spreading a canard that the Dalit party will forge a partnership with the BJP post elections to ensure that Muslims do not vote for them given their dislike for the right-wing party.

Addressing a rally in Meerut on Tuesday, Yadav said, “I wonder why PM included Mayawati’s name in ‘SCAM’. They came together thrice to form government in UP.”

At a public gathering in the same city last week, Narendra Modi had coined a political syntax out of SCAM to take a jibe at Opposition parties. The PM had said that ‘S’ stood for Samajwadi Party, ‘C’ for Congress, ‘A’ for Akhilesh and ‘M’ for Mayawati.

The BSP had formed alliance with the SP way back in 1993 to form government in UP but that alliance fell apart in two years and since then the two regional parties have been arch rivals. Mayawati then regained power by forming a coalition with the BJP in 2005. The BJP leaders repent till date giving her a lifeline as it helped Mayawati to expand her social base beyond Schedule Castes and become a dominant player in  north-Indian politics.

But SP ally Congress is sending different signals, perhaps to keep future options open. After Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had praised former CM Mayawati, his senior party colleague Ghulam Nabi Azad said two days ago at a Ghaziabad rally that the BSP-Congress-SP alliance would have wiped out BJP from Uttar Pradesh. The Congress had earlier tried to have a grand alliance in UP to replicate the Bihar model which had helped the JD(U)-led coalition to defeat BJP and occupy power in Patna.

Mufti Ezaz Ahmad Qasmi, Deoband Old Boys Association chairman, said: “Mayawati has never compromised on principles. Even in a coalition government, she always had the upper hand and resigned when the situation turned bad for the BSP,” Qasmi argued. He stressed Muslims can feel safe only under BSP rule as even her critics appreciate that law and order situation is always better during Mayawati’s rule.