The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Tuesday said on Tuesday that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) were trying to communalise and turn the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election into a “Hindu-Muslim” one.
Ms. Mayawati also said that the two were “different sides of the same coin” and that there was no difference between them. To divert attention from its anti-people policy and failures, the BJP was working in collusion with the SP to raise communal and religious issues, she told reporters at a press conference here. “They want to make the election Hindu-Muslim,” she said
Renewed antipathy
It must be recalled that in 2019 Ms. Mayawati had allied with the SP for the Lok Sabha election but broke off the ties after the results, renewing acrimony between the two sides who have ruled the State for most of the last three decades.
Referring to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s latest remark on Muhammad Ali Jinnah at a rally in Hardoi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s regular utterances on the 1990 firing on ‘karsevaks’ in Ayodhya under the Mulayam Singh Government, Ms. Mayawati said the SP and BJP were dependant on each other and nourished each other’s politics.
Casteist and communal
“Both parties are casteist and communal,” said Ms. Mayawati, stating that when the SP is in power, the BJP gets strengthened. In contrast, when the BSP comes to power, the BJP becomes weak, she said. Despite a long list of her leaders switching loyalty to the SP, Ms. Mayawati said their exit will not impact her party. Party workers and supporters don’t leaveBSP when these leaders quit, she argued.
Ms. Mayawati also targeted Mr. Adityanath, saying that though both of them don’t have their own families, the difference between them was that while Mr. Adityanath had donned saffron robes of a sanyasi to show-off, she had not done anything like that.
