BJP stated that SP-BSP union was compelled to collapse as leaders came mutually to protect their families. The chief alliance in Uttar Pradesh formally collapsed on Wednesday after the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), one of the three partners, announced that they would contest the upcoming by-polls alone.
Claiming that SP-BSP alliance was a ‘thagbandhan’ to deceive people, UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey said, “Voters called their bluff. It was an opportunistic alliance forged to save their own families and hide acts of corruption. The alliance never had any vision or thoughts and had nothing to do for the welfare of the public.”
Ironically, the alliance idea was incepted when the BSP and SP did exceptionally well against the BJP by merging their votes, an extension to that of Ajit Singh’s RLD, in a connection of byelections in UP last year, and has now cracked up before different set of byelections, this time wholly to the UP Assembly.
Centrally, the glue was very vulnerable. The social base of the SP and BSP – the land-owning and influential Yadav OBC caste and the Dalit toiler in the field – are not natural allies. The line may be said of the BSP and the Jat farmer who might back the RLD. The assured Muslim vote for each of these groups was the only constant factor.
“The foremost reason for the alliance of SP and BSP falling apart is that it followed the mantra of ‘apna swaarth, apna vikaas’ (self-interest) unlike the mantra of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas (for all, development of all) given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This was an opportunistic alliance, and it was bound to fall apart,” he said.
