Will repeat 2014 LS win in UP despite SP-BSP alliance: BJP leader

The BJP views the alliance between the SP and BSP as a challenge in Uttar Pradesh, but is confident of repeating in the next Lok Sabha polls its 2014 feat of winning 71 out of the 80 seats, a top party leader claimed today.

The BJP leader, in an interaction with journalists, also claimed that his party will win "one seat more and not less" in UP, which sends maximum number of MPs to Parliament, in the next general election.

The party also eyeing victory in at least one of the two Gandhi family bastions --Amethi and Rae Bareli, the leader said on condition of anonymity.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi were elected from Amethi and Rae Bareli respectively in 2014.

Since it was formed, the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance has trumped the BJP in the recent Lok Sabha bypolls in Gorakhpur, a stronghold of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and Phulpur.

The alliance is also in play in the Kairana bypoll, which is due on May 28, and where it has backed the Rashtriya Lok Dal nominee against the saffron party.

The BJP leader said that his party will rely on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal, the organisational strength and its electoral strategy to get the better of the alliance.

He also said that the BJP would like its alliance with the Shiv Sena, its longtime ally but with whom its relations have been turbulent in recent times, to continue in the next Lok Sabha election.

The Sena has announced that it will go alone in the polls but the BJP leader pointed out that the party's leaders continued to be in the central as well as state governments to indicate that the alliance was far from over.

With many political analysts arguing that it will be difficult for the BJP to repeat its stupendous performance in northern and western states, he said the party has been working at the organisational level in 120 seats where it had lost time to ensure that its tally in 2019 goes up.

These seats are in states such as West Bengal, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, besides the north east.