 "BSP a force to reckon with: Mayawati")
Bahujan Samaj Party will emerge as a force to reckon with in the forthcoming assembly elections in four states and the Lok Sabha polls in 2014, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and party chief Mayawati said here Saturday.
People of the state were fed up with the misrule of the Samajwadi Party and were yearning for change, the BSP leader said at a press conference in the state capital.
On the upcoming state assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, Mayawati said her party would emerge as a "balance of power" and will be crucial in all government formations in these states.
Mayawati took a jibe at the media and said the press may take her statement lightly but they should remember that a decade back, the BSP was considered an "also ran" party that later came to power in the state.
She termed the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as parties which had grossly disappointed the aspirations of the people of India.
Mayawati said the infighting in the BJP will only help her party.
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Referring to senior BJP leader L.K. Advani, prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and BJP chief Rajnath Singh, the BSP leader said: "The troika of Advani-Modi-Rajnath are busy cutting each other and all this will reap rich dividends for the BSP."
The former chief minister hoped that with people's support, the BSP will emerge as the No.1 party in the Lok Sabha polls in the state.
She also accused the SP-BJP of having an "illicit understanding" to foment communal passions in Uttar Pradesh in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
As the elections draw closer, the "evil designs" of these two parties will come to the fore, she said.
On media reports that three bungalows have been merged in New Delhi by the Congress to please her before the polls, Mayawati said this was done to accommodate the Bahujan Prerna Sthal as its earlier campus was not big enough.
"Reports like this are far from the truth and reflect anti-Dalit mentality," she said.
Mayawati said such barbs against her will grow as elections approach.
She reiterated her earlier demand of imposition of president's rule in the state because of what she termed as "jungleraj" (lawlessness).