No Post-Poll Ties With Bjp, Sp: Mayawati

Talking to reporters, she ruled out the possibility of the party assisting the Bharatiya Janata Party in the formation of a government in UP.

Our principal political foe is the BJP and hence the question of aligning with that party under any circumstance does not arise, she said when asked if the BSP would repeat the arrangement it had with the BJP to oust Mulayam Singh Yadav's government in the past.

The party, she asserted, had not given up its ideological war against manuwadi forces. There would be no compromise on the issue just because the BSP had fielded 60 candidates belonging to the upper caste.

All these candidates have accepted the party's social justice plank and hence we have given them tickets, she said. Among them 25 are Thakurs, 12 brahmins and five banias, she added.

Mayawati said the era of empowerment of dalits and other backward classes (obcs) had come and her party was only striving to achieve that adding that the country will have a dalit as Prime Minister in five years.

Referring to her party's alliance with the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Delhi, she said this will certainly help the party to make a dent into the Muslim vote-bank which is around 14 per cent in UP.

The Muslims, she said, had realised that they could defeat the BJP only by aligning with the BSP since the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav had lost its roots among other backward classes in the state.

She denied that her party had given tickets to criminals. The party candidates described as criminals had falsely implicated.

Moreover, such people have taken up the cause of the dalits and downtrodden and their crusade had been projected in wrong light by the well-entrenched Manuwadi forces, she said.