UP: Maya strives to replace SP as principal oppn party

After their short-lived bonhomie, BSP supremo Mayawati is now striving to replace the Samajwadi Party (SP) as the principal Opposition party in Uttar Pradesh by the time of the next Assembly polls in the state, which is slated to occur in around two-and-half years.

As a first step towards realising this objective, Mayawati has asked party leaders and workers to ensure that the BSP not only retains its lone seat in the forthcoming mini-Assembly elections in the state but also wrests a few from the BJP.

She has also asked party leaders to ensure that the BSP finishes second on seats it doesn't win.

By-polls were slated for 13 Assembly seats in the state in the next few days. BJP had won 11 of the seats going to by-polls, while SP and BSP had won one each.

In the 2017 Assembly polls, SP had won 47 seats, while the BSP had managed to win only 19 seats. In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, however, the BSP, in alliance with the SP, won 10 seats. SP could win only five seats.

BSP leaders said that SP, which had witnessed large scale desertion, had been considerably "weakened" by the exit of strong grassroot leaders like Shivpal Singh Yadav and was now "vulnerable".

"Besides SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav has not been keeping well and keeps away from the party affairs... Akhilesh Yadav does not possess the organisational skills of Shivpal and Mulayam," remarked a senior BSP leader while speaking to DH here.

The leader also said that Mayawati's decision to contest the assembly by-polls was driven by the objective of emerging as the main Opposition party in the next couple of years.

The leader said that Mayawati had effected organisational changes in the party and also reverted to her tested 'social engineering' formula, of weaving an alliance of 'Brahmin-Dalit-Muslims'.

It remains to be seen if this strategy pays the electoral dividend in the forthcoming assembly by-polls.