SP-BSP say stats favour alliance; BJP dismissive

Ecstatic over their alliance, the supporters of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and BSP cited past statistics to claim that they would sweep Uttar Pradesh in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP, however, dismissed their claims saying that the people of the state would ''reject'' their ''opportunistic'' alliance.

In 2014 Parliamentary polls, when the BJP had won 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state with its alliance partner Apna Dal, the saffron party's vote share stood at 42.6 %.

The SP had secured 22.3% and the BSP got 19.8 % votes. Congress' vote share was 7.5 %.

The BJP had polled more votes than the SP-BSP together.

In 2017 state Assembly polls, however, BJP's vote share came down to 39.7% though it decimated the rivals and won 325 of the 403 seats in the state.

In 2017, the SP had secured 21.8 % and BSP had got 22.2 % votes and their combined vote share this time was more than that of the BJP.

The Congress had secured 6.3 % votes in 2017.

The confidence of the SP-BSP alliance stemmed from the 2017 statistic and the victory of their nominees in the three Lok Sabha bypolls of Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana last year.

The wins at Gorakhpur and Phulpur were more significant as these constituencies were represented by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya.

''We are poised to sweep UP,'' claimed an SP leader here.

BJP leader Vijay Bahadur Pathak, however, dismissed their claims.

''Its an opportunistic alliance... People will reject it.... No one is more popular in the country today than Prime Minister Narendra Modi,'' he said.