Rajnath Singh rubbishes SP-BSP alliance, says BJP will sweep Uttar Pradesh again

Jan 14 (AZINS) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has rubbished the SP-BSP alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, saying the BJP would at the very least retain the 72 seats it won in 2014. He pointed to the sweeping victory his party scored in the 2017 Assembly elections as an indication of the result to come in Uttar Pradesh, which send 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

"Have they forgotten what happened in 2017 elections?" asked Rajnath, a former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. "They can form as many alliances as they want, but BJP will not win less than 72 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh," he said, reported news agency ANI.

The SP and BSP have abandoned their decades-long blood feud in a bid to contain the BJP's massive growth in Uttar Pradesh. SP leader Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati, both former CMs of the state, formally announced their tie-up on Saturday at a joint press conference in Lucknow.

The SP and BSP announced that they would contest in 38 seats each. Of the four remaining seats, they are likely to allocated two to smaller alliance partners like the Nishad Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), while choosing not to contest in Amethi and Rae Bareilly, which are represented by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi respectively.

SP and BSP decided to abandon the Congress to fight out the Lok Sabha elections by itself in Uttar Pradesh, even as they kept the door open for possible collaborations in the post-poll scenario.