Maha cracks in Mahagatbandhan? Mayawati blames Akhilesh Yadav for poll drubbing

An enemy's enemy is a friend may have been the logic for Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party joining hands before Lok Sabha election 2019. The poor showing in the election may well be the reason for the very same alliance to now call it quits. This after Mayawati on Monday blamed Akhilesh Yadav for the performance of the two parties in Uttar Pradesh.

The BSP-SP combine, also called Mahagatbandhan, was dealt a severe blow when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered comprehensive wins in 62 of the 80 parliamentary seats in UP. The alliance, which also had Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal, could manage wins in only 17 parliamentary seats while Congress scraped to a solitary win in Rae Bareli. For Mayawati, it was not the outcome she had expected when she had decided to keep aside past enmity with SP. On Monday, she reportedly put the blame on Akhilesh during a review meeting with BSP office bearers. According to sources in the party, she also said that Akhilesh was not even able to ensure a win for his wife Dimple who lost from Kannauj seat by over 12,000 votes. Mayawati is also believed to have said that Akhilesh was unable to stop the division of Yadav votes and said that SP supporters may not have voted for BSP candidates in many places.

In the same meeting, there were discussions on the fairness of using EVMs as well. Party officials, however, said that the main crux of discussions at the BSP meeting was to introspect and figure out reasons for the defeat in Lok Sabha election 2019. "Such meetings are common after every election," said Shyam Singh Yadav who had staged a win from Jaunpur parliamentary seat on a BSP ticket. "We had estimated wins for our alliance in 60 to 70 seats. Therefore, the eventual result puts the focus on EVMs being tampered with on a large scale. Had EVMs not been manipulated, the result would have been vastly different."

Even as BSP appears to now blame EVMs for its shabby performance in the recently-concluded election, signs are not too auspicious for the BSP-SP alliance that had come with the sole purpose of stopping BJP juggernaut in UP.

(Reporting by Vinod Mishra/Zee UP/Uttarakhand)