BSP president Mayawati decides to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls alone; Congress says BSP chief should have taken the current political scenario into account
Our Bureau
New Delhi/Lucknow
In a further setback to the INDIA bloc, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Friday announced the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) alliance with Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The SP supremo tweeted on Friday, “Congratulations to everyone on the Rashtriya Lok Dal-SP alliance. Let us all unite for victory!” Akhilesh Yadav posted on X on Friday.
According to the party sources, RLD will fight in alliance on 7 to 8 seats on most of the seats in Western UP.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Congress held a seat-sharing meeting with Samajwadi Party leaders in Delhi. Congress leader Salman Khurshid said, “…We’ve shared details of each seat with each other…I hope that the alliance happens before the (Bharat Jodo Nyay) Yatra reaches Uttar Pradesh.”
The Congress is holding seat-sharing talks with all its alliance partners before launching the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls.
INDIA or ‘Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance’ is a group of opposition parties, including the Congress. The parties have come together to take on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and prevent it from winning a third straight term at the Centre in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
As the 2024 Lok Sabha elections draw near, India’s political landscape is undergoing a significant reshuffling. The emerging INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) consortium is gearing up to challenge the NDA, setting the stage for an electoral showdown.
Earlier in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the NDA won 353 seats, the UPA stood at 91, and Others won 98. The voting was staggered in seven phases between April 11 and May 19, in which around 67 per cent of the nearly 900 million eligible people exercised their franchise to elect 542 members of the Lok Sabha.
Meanwhile, After BSP president Mayawati’s announcement of contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha polls alone, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said on Monday that the BSP chief should have taken the current political scenario into account in order to defeat BJP. “BSP chief Mayawati has refused to join the INDIA alliance before the elections. She said that she would have a post-poll alliance but today’s political scenario is such that all opposition parties should have come together to fight against BJP,” said Pramod Tiwari.
“BJP got just 37.8 percent of votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. If the remaining 62.2 percent vote would have united, then we could have limited BJP to 100 seats. It was needed that all of us should have contested elections together. However, when we form government after the elections, she (Mayawati) will be welcomed into the alliance, depending on the conditions at that time,” he added.
BSP chief Mayawati on Monday reiterated her party’s stand for the 2024 Lok Sabha election and said that her party will contest the polls alone. Addressing a press conference here, the BSP chief said that her party may consider about alliance once the elections are over.
“Our experience with alliances has never been beneficial for us and we suffer more losses from alliances. For this reason, most of the parties in the country want to form an alliance with BSP. An alliance can be considered after the elections. If possible, BSP can extend its support after the elections. Our party will fight the elections all
