Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati has decided to go alone in the forthcoming by-elections to 11 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, raising serious doubts about the sustainability of the SP-BSP mahagathbandhan.
On Monday, addressing a meeting in New Delhi, Mayawati conveyed to party leaders that the grand coalition hadn't yielded the BSP desired results, and the SP had failed to get Yadav votes transferred to her party candidates.
Significantly, the BSP got 10 seats in this Lok Sabha polls as against 2014 polls when it could not even manage one seat.
She asked party leaders to start short-listing candidates for the 11 by-elections that will be held because these legislators have been elected to the Lok Sabha.
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Nine legislators of BJP have won Lok Sabha elections while one legislator each from BSP and SP have been elected to the Lok Sabha.
Meanwhile, state BSP President R.S. Kushwaha told reporters that EVMs were mainly responsible for the poor performance of the BSP in the Lok Sabha elections.
The BSP won 10 Lok Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh. The party had contest 38 seats.
The Samajwadi Party, on the other hand, had contested 37 seats and could win only five. The Rashtriya Lok Dal had contested three seats and could not win even one.
Interestingly, both Mayawati and SP President Akhilesh Yadav have not said a word on the future of the alliance till now.
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The SP-BSP grand coalition, many said, would trounce the Modi-Shah-led BJP, but the saffron wave swept Uttar Pradesh, with BJP alone winning 62 seats.
(With inputs from IANS)
