BJP, SP want UP elections to be 'Hindu-Muslim affair, says Mayawati

BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday accused the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party of the bid to give a communal colour to next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, saying both outfits want the elections to be a "Hindu-Muslim affair".

Mayawati told reporters that both parties complement each other as their thought process is "casteist and communal".

The statement by Mayawati has come in the wake of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath invoking the alleged Kairana "exodus", and the Ram temple in Ayodhya during his public meetings.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav recently equated Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah with freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, attracting sharp reaction from the opponents.

"The BJP government in order to hide its failure and divert the attention from it has colluded with the SP," Mayawati told reporters here at a press conference.

They are making efforts to raise communal issues like the Ayodhya police firing (on karsevaks) and Jinnah so that the Assembly elections "become a Hindu-Muslim affair", she alleged.

"This naturally exposes vested political interests of the SP and the BJP. This is true that the SP and the BJP have always been complementary to each other and the thought process of both these parties is casteist and communal," she alleged.

"So, when the SP is in power, the BJP becomes stronger, but if the BSP is in power, the BJP becomes weak," she said.

The former UP chief minister said the public has now become aware of the "conspiracies" of the BJP and the SP.

"The BSP hopes that people of the state will not fall prey to any of the conspiracies," she said, adding that as elections draw near, the BJP and other anti-BSP parties start "enacting a drama to woo and mislead people".

She alleged that the Centre and the UP government in the past a couple of months made numerous announcements and laid several foundation stones besides inaugurating "half-baked works".

"This shows that the BJP is going to lose the Assembly elections," Mayawati said.

Targeting the Congress, Mayawati said had the party fulfilled half of the promises it had made during its long rule, it would not have been out of power at the Centre and in most states of the country.

Taking a jibe at the BJP and the SP for claiming huge wins in the elections, she said, "The SP is claiming that it will win 400 seats in the upcoming UP Assembly elections while BJP is claiming that it will win 300 seats. This is childish and 'hawa hawai'. From this point of view, the Election Commission has to increase the seats in the UP Assembly to 1,000.