Lucknow: A political buzz was set off on Saturday in the wake of a meeting between Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati, reportedly on seat-sharing for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Reports suggested that Akhilesh and Mayawati were inclined to keep the Congress out of the proposed alliance, prompting senior Congress leader P L Punia to indicate that his party could go it alone.
“The chiefs of Samajwadi Party and BSP held a meeting and discussions were held over the alliance,” Punia told ANI.
“Both the political parties (SP and BSP) are independent to take their own decisions. How can a third person interfere?
Whatever decision they take for themselves, they would take it according to their own understanding and considering the benefits for their parties,” the Congress MP dded.
On reports that Akhilesh and Mayawati were inclined to keep his party out of the proposed alliance, Punia said, “The Congress is doing its own politics and all the leaders and workers are ready for the upcoming polls.”
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav feigned ignorance about the meeting.
“I don’t have any information whether Akhilesh and Mayawati met,” Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters in Etawah when asked about reports that the two leaders had met yesterday and discussed seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha polls.
On whether the SP and BSP had firmed up an alliance, he said any such development can be confirmed only by Akhilesh and Mayawati.
Asked to comment on reports that Akhilesh and Mayawati were in a mood to keep the Congress out of the alliance, the Samajwadi Party General Secretary termed these as “imaginative”.
Commenting on the reports, BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain ruled any impact on his party due to any alliance between SP and BSP.
“In the 2014 elections, SP, except for the family seats, was a zero. Similarly BSP got zero seats. When two zeros meet, they make a big zero,” he told ANI.
Hussain said people of Uttar Pradesh are with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The people of UP played a big role in making Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of the country,” the BJP leader added.
Uttar Pradesh plays a crucial role in the formation of central government as it has 80 Lok Sabha seats out of the total of 543 in the Lower House of Parliament.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP made almost a clean sweep, bagging 71 seats while is ally Apna Dal got two.
The SP had got five and the Congress could retain just the Amethi and Raebareli seats.
The BSP could not open its account.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]