Samajwadi Party feels pact with Mayawati only way to combat BJP in 2019 Parliament elections

NEW DELHI: Several Samajwadi Party leaders now believe that a pre-poll alliance with Mayawati’s BSP is perhaps the only way to check BJP’s march in Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 Parliament elections.

ET’s interactions with several SP leaders — including its national executive members and candidates in the recent assembly polls — about the future of their party after two massive defeats at the hands of BJP in three years indicate a groundswell of support for an alliance with BSP, though they are apprehensive about Mayawati.

“It’s (SP-BSP alliance) is a compulsion… else we are staring at marginalisation,” said a Muslim SP leader, who was a cabinet minister in Akhilesh Yadav government, after his defeat in the assembly elections. At least three members of SP’s national executive, which was reconstituted by Akhilesh Yadav recently, conceded that an alliance is “a matter of survival” for both SP and BSP.

But most SP leaders expressed reservation over Mayawati’s isolationist politics. “Problem is no one knows the mind of Mayawati,” a senior SP functionary said. This comes to fore during interactions with BSP leaders as well. Unlike SP leaders, BSP members remain tightlipped about their future political course of action as they have not got any inkling about Mayawati’s approach after the electoral debacle.




While SP has not officially spelled out any suggestion to forge a pre-poll alliance with BSP, rising clamour for it among party cadre is likely to weigh on the mind of its leadership. More so after the new leadership did not hesitate to jettison party’s unspoken policy to not forge pre-poll alliance with Congress.

“The infamous Lucknow guest house controversy of 1995 where Mayawati faced one of her worst political humiliations at the hand of SP men remains a huge political baggage against any kind of Mayawati-Mulayam agreement. Akhilesh Yadav, however, has no such baggage and Mayawati could consider changing her stance,” said a member of SP national executive.

That BJP has installed staunch Hindutva icon Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister may also come handy for a political argument for any future realignment within UP. A SP leader, in this context, suggested that the first formal indications for realignment may come early n e x t ye a r wh e n Mayawati’s Rajya Sabha term expires. “BSP doesn’t have enough strength to ensure Rajya Sabha renomination for Mayawati next year. SP may choose to lend support to her renomination.

That would mark the first formal signal of any realignment,” said a Rajya Sabha member. Incidentally, both parties have closed their ranks in Rajya Sabha since the election results to corner BJP over issues of Dalits, OBCs and minorities since their debacle in the UP polls.