Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati has said that opposition parties must provide adequate seats if they want her party to be a part of their alliance for elections in Uttar Pradesh and the rest of the country.
Addressing party workers and senior leaders during BSP’s national executive meeting, Mayawati said talks with other parties are going on for the purpose of creating a united “anti-BJP” front, but BSP will participate in them only if it is promised a respectable number of seats. If BSP does not get adequate seats in the opposition alliance, the party will contest 2019 general elections alone, she said.
Mayawati said it has become very important for the opposition and regional parties to unite in order to keep BJP away, and that is why she had decided to contest Lok Sabha by-elections in two seats of Uttar Pradesh in alliance with bitter rivals Samajwadi Party. These two seats had fallen vacant after UP CM Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Maurya had resigned to form the state government. BJP had suffered a shocking defeat during by-polls there, while the SP-BSP alliance won comfortably.
Apart from flexing muscles to demand a fair share of seats in the opposition coalition, Mayawati also asserted her position as BSP chief by saying that nobody in the party should even think of becoming its president at least for the next two decades until she becomes old.
The former Uttar Pradesh CM said some people in the party are trying to promote their own families and this is unfortunate. She also asked party workers to be ready for any outcome and remain prepared in case BSP has to fight all upcoming elections on its own might.