BJP says SP-BSP alliance was bound to collapse as leaders came together only to save their families

With the SP and the BSP deciding to contest the UP assembly bypolls separately, the ruling BJP on Tuesday ridiculed the two parties for parting ways within a fortnight after the Lok Sabha results, saying it was bound to happen as their leaders had come together only to serve their self interest.

BJP leaders said that when Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav announced their alliance in January this year, they relied heavily on caste arithmetic, but it failed.

"The voters rejected outright the casteist and opportunistic politics of these two parties," UP BJP spokesperson Hero Bajpai told PTI.

The BJP bagged 62 of 80 Lok Sabha seats while the SP-BSP-RLD grand alliance won only 15.

The two back-to-back media interactions by the chiefs of BSP and the SP Tuesday, which put a question mark on the fate of the alliance, came as music to the ears of the BJP leaders who recalled that during the election rallies Prime Minister Narendra Modi had predicted that May 23 will be the "expiry date" for the grouping, and their leaders "will tear each others' clothes" after the Lok Sabha poll results are declared that day.

Alleging that SP-BSP alliance was a 'thagbandhan' to dupe people, UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey said, "Voters called their bluff. It was an opportunistic alliance forged to save their own families and hide acts of corruption. The alliance never had any vision or thoughts and had nothing to do for the welfare of the public."
Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said the alliance was formed only to stop Prime Minister Modi from coming back to power. "It has miserably failed, and its disintegration was certain," he said,