After coming together in Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) are set to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh in an alliance as well.
In Madhya Pradesh, the SP will contest three seats - Balaghat, Tikamgarh and Khajuraho - while the BSP will contest the remaining 26. In Uttarakhand, the SP is allotted the Garhwal seat, while the BSP will contest the remaining four.
The BSP getting a larger share of seats in the arrangement between the two allies follows the pattern of Uttar Pradesh, where the BSP will fight 38 and the SP 37, with adjustments still to be made to accommodate allies like the Nishad Party.
Last week, when the two parties announced the seats they would contest in Uttar Pradesh, SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav criticised his son Akhilesh Yadav for giving in too much to the BSP and accused him of weakening the party, which currently has seven Lok Sabha seats against the BSP’s none.
“On what basis were half the seats given [to the BSP]” asked Mr. Mulayam at the party headquarters.
Mayawati hits out at Modi
Meanwhile, BSP chief Mayawati hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day after his holy dip at the Kumbh Mela, asking if the “shahi dip” will be “able to wash sins of reneging poll promises, treachery & other state wrongs?”
Ms. Mayawati said it “was not possible for people to forgive the BJP easily for making their life miserable” through demonetisation, GST, “vengeance, casteism, communal and authoritarian rule.”
Taking to Twitter, she said the Modi government “should differentiate” between farmers and landless labourers, referring to the PM-KISAN scheme launched by Mr. Modi in Gorakhpur on Sunday.
“His Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme of ₹500 a month may be useful for labourers but not helpful for farmers who want remunerative prices for their produce which the BJP government has failed to ensure. This is a failure,” she said.
While the SP and BSP may not be the major players in M.P. and Uttarakhand, they do have pockets of influence and vote shares that can become crucial in tight fights between the two main players, the Congress and the BJP.
In Uttarakhand, the BJP vote share in 2014 Lok Sabha was 55.95% while the Congress was 34.40 and the BSP 4.79. In M.P., the BSP share was 3.85%, against 54.76 of the BJP and 35.35 of the Congress.
M.P. Assembly polls
However, in the recent M.P. Assembly elections, the position of the SP and BSP became important, as the Congress just scraped past the BJP. The two parties extended support to the Congress in government formation. While the BSP got a vote share of 5 %, the SP received 1.3% of the votes.
In terms of seats, the BSP won two — Bhind & Pathariya — and came second in five others, losing Gwalior (R) by 1517, Deotalab by 1080, Pohari by 7918 and Sabalagadh by 8737 votes.
The SP won one seat — Bijawar — by over 36000 votes, standing second place in four, including Paraswada, (margin 9608), Prithvipur (7620) and Gurh (7828).
In Uttarakhand, though the BSP and SP didn't win any seats in the 2017 Assembly polls, their combined vote share was little over 7%.
