As the 2019 Lok Sabha elections are approaching, political parties have started their election calculations. Yesterday on January 12, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party officially declared their alliance in Uttar Pradesh with a declared agenda of keeping the BJP out of power.
The primary agenda of the opposition parties in the upcoming general elections is to defeat the BJP. And to achieve the same, such political formations are happening which were unimaginable in the past. However, this is not the first time that such political patch-ups are being resorted to by the political parties to grab the power. In view of this political scenario, a four year old interview of former President of Samajwadi Party Mulayam Singh Yadav becomes relevant. In the interview, Mulayam Singh Yadav is seen admitting that his party had transferred votes to Congress in Amethi to defeat BJP in 2014.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyRhfQV9H2U]
Acting on similar lines this time also, the SP-BSP have left the two seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli for Congress despite the fact that Congress is not a part of the alliance. The SP and the BSP will be contesting on 38 seats each while the RLD and other parties will contest on 2 seats only.
As the 2019 general elections become a question of survival, the opposition parties have chosen to look beyond their past differences and joined hands for their own benefit. BSP supremo Mayawati while addressing the joint press conference yesterday had claimed that she has decided to ally with SP forgetting the 1995 Guest House incident in the “interest of nation”.
Meanwhile the four year old video of Mulayam Singh Yadav has invoked some Twitter reactions. Some questioned:
What was the cost of this favour ???
— jp (@JPulasaria) January 13, 2019
Some speculated:
Mulayam Singh Yadav admits to @PrabhuChawla that Samajwadi Party indeed helped Rahul Gandhi win Amethi in 2014 otherwise he would have lost.
Rahul won by approx 1.05 lakh votes. It’s believed that 1 lakh votes were transferred by Samajwadi Party in favour of Rahul. Do the math!! pic.twitter.com/bkBpPNmHqR— Priti Gandhi (@MrsGandhi) January 12, 2019
Some mocked:
He is talking of samaj wadi maths ..Which has always proved wrong g any way.
— Padmakar Tillu (@PadmakarTillu) January 13, 2019
Whether the political patch ups will prove beneficial for the opposition parties or not will only be revealed after the election results. However past experience has not been very pleasant when it comes to such alliances.
