BSP to go it alone
An appeal: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP president Mayawati addresses a press conference in New Delhi on Sunday, 15 March, 2009.
NEW DELHI (March 15,2009): Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Sunday announced that her party would go it alone in the Lok Sabha elections and made it clear that the issue of the prime ministerial candidate of the Third Front would be decided after the polls.
At a press conference here, she said the BSP had not entered into any alliance or understanding with any party for the elections. It would make all-out efforts to keep the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and their coalitions out of power at the Centre. “The Left parties and some other parties are determined and working unitedly for this purpose, and our belief is that we will achieve our objective this time,” she said.
Referring to the dinner meeting with the Third Front leaders on Sunday, Ms. Mayawati said it was not scheduled to discuss the issue of prime ministership. “It has nothing to do with the issue of prime ministership. The issue will be decided only after the results of the 15th Lok Sabha polls are out.”
“All our allies are contesting the elections separately and after the polls, we will unitedly prevent the UPA and the NDA from coming to power.”
The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister claimed that the Third Front’s growing influence had “rattled” the UPA and NDA leaders and made them panicky. In desperation, they were attacking it through public statements. It was the “heartfelt desire” of BSP founder Kanshi Ram that the party captured power at the Centre and in all States.
The BSP supremo released her party’s “appeal” for the elections in which she identified unemployment, rising prices, terrorism and lopsided economic policies of the Congress and the BJP as key problems facing the country.
The “appeal” attacked both the UPA and the NDA and alleged that their governments failed to come out with “proper” economic policies that had hit the common man hard. The BSP was the only viable alternative to the policies of the Congress and the BJP, it said and appealed to people to give an opportunity to the party to form a government at the Centre.
