New Delhi: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Thursday attacked the Congress and questioned Opposition efforts to stitch a coalition by 2024, wondering in a series of tweets what they could do for the uplift of Bahujans in the country.
A day ahead of the Opposition’s grand meeting in Patna, the BSP leader said the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh was key to electoral success “but it does not seem from the attitude of the Opposition that they are serious and truly concerned about their objectives”.
“Without the right priorities, will preparations for the Lok Sabha elections bring about the necessary change?” she asked.
Before making such an attempt, Mayawati said, these parties should have “instilled confidence in the public about them”.
She asked how far this coalition would go if these parties chanted Ram yet thought of backstabbing each other.
The BSP will skip the 23 June Opposition meeting after not being invited to it along with Naveen Patnaik (BJD), Jagan Mohan Reddy (YSR), Sukhbir Singh Badal (SAD), K. Chandrasekhar Rao (BRS) and H.D. Kumaraswamy (JD-S).
Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) confirmed Wednesday that Maya was left out because the BSP did not express any wish to join Opposition unity. JD(U) chief spokesperson K.C. Tyagi also said the BSP has criticised the Congress more than the BJP.
As if on cue, the BSP chief tweeted Thursday: “It is clear from the stricken condition of Bahujans in the country — suffering from inflation, poverty, unemployment, backwardness, illiteracy, caste hatred, religious frenzy and violence — that the Congress and the BJP do not have the ability to properly implement the humanistic egalitarian Constitution of Baba Saheb Ambedkar.”
Mayawati said from the various individual issues these parties keep raising, the Opposition meeting on 23 June seemed to define the saying: “Dil mile na mile haath milate rahiye.”
The Opposition’s event on Friday is being convened by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar — who has toured the country meeting like-minded leaders — to find common ground ahead of the 2024 general elections. Kumar has rooted for Opposition unity ever since he left the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and joined the Opposition platform in August last year.
Top leaders of several parties, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, M.K. Stalin Arvind Kejriwal and Sitaram Yechury.
Meanwhile, the BSP’s fortunes in UP have only plummeted in the last few elections. The party formed the state government in 2007, winning 206 out of 403 seats. However, since then the seat share has only fallen with the party winning 80 seats in 2012, 19 in 2017, and only one in 2022.
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