Mayawati supported me whenever I was in need: Mulayam Singh

Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Friday said the BSP chief Mayawati has always supported him whenever he was in need, as the leaders shared the stage for the first time after the infamous 1995 guesthouse episode.

"I urge you to give her (Mayawati) huge respect because she supported me whenever I was in need," Mulayam said at a joint rally organised by the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in his bastion here.

Mulayam said: "I am very pleased that respected Mayawati ji has come here to seek votes for me. I will never forget this favour."

"I want to tell you that we will have to be on the same stage," he told Mayawati, a foe-turned-friend.

Mulayam is contesting from Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency where he won in 2014 but later dropped it to represent Azamgarh in the Parliament.

The SP and the BSP had first forged an alliance to defeat the BJP in the 1993 Assembly elections.

Relations between the two parties strained after some armed SP workers barged in a Lucknow guest house where Mayawati was meeting with BSP MLAs and leaders in 1995.

After 24 years, however, history took a turn to repeat itself with SP, BSP and Rashtriya Lok Dal joining hands to defeat the BJP, this time in the Lok Saha polls.

As per the seat-sharing pact for the alliance, the BSP, SP, and RLD are contesting on 38, 37 and 3 Lok Sabha seats, respectively, in the state.