What is SP-BSP alliance? All you need to know about bua-bhatija pact for 2019 Lok Sabha election

The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Saturday (January 12) announced a major decision and said the two will form an alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Addressing a joint press conference in Lucknow, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati said the two parties have decided to join hands and will contest on equal number of Lol Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The SP and the BSP have decided to exclude Congress from their pre-poll alliance.

WHO WILL CONTEST HOW MANY SEATS

Uttar Pradesh has a total of 80 Lok Sabha seats. The Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party have decided that they will field candidates on 76 seats.

Each will contest on 38 seats.The remaining four seats have been left for the Congress and others.

The SP and the BSP have decided that they will not field any candidate to oppose Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi in their respective Lok Sabha seats. Rahul Gandhi is a Lok Sabha MP from Amethi and Sonia Gandhi from Raebareli.

The remaining two seats may be given to Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal, with whom talks are on.

WHY WAS CONGRESS EXCLUDED

Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav in their press conference said the decision to exclude Congress was taken after they realised that allying with the Congress has not benefitted them in the past.

Mayawati said that past elections have shown that while the SP and the BSP are able to transfer their votes in favour of the Congress, the reverse has not been true.

"In the past I have seen that our votes get transferred to the Congress, but not vice-versa. We do not gain from an alliance with the Congress, whereas the vote transfer is perfect in an SP-BSP tie-up," Mayawati said.

Attacking the Congress, Mayawati said the Congress failed to check poverty and unemployment whenever it was in power. She said corruption grew under Congress regimes and that there were irregularities in defence deals.

WHO WON WHAT IN 2014 LOK SABHA ELECTION

In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 71 seats in Uttar Pradesh, which sends the largest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha.

BJP ally Apna Dal bagged two.

The SP won five seats and the Congress two, while the BSP drew a blank.

HOW HAS CONGRESS REACTED

Responding to the political developments in Uttar Pradesh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said he has "tremendous respect" for Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav. Speaking at an event in Dubai, he said the two parties (SP and BSP) have taken a political decision and they are free to do what they want.

Rahul Gandhi said the Congress will fight the Lok Sabha election on the party's strengths.

BSP and SP have made a political decision. It's on us on how to strengthen the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh and we will fight with our full capacity: Congress President @RahulGandhi#RahulGandhiPressMeet pic.twitter.com/PxkIRWAO6G Congress (@INCIndia) January 12, 2019

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram said that he hopes that the SP-BSP alliance is "not the last word". He said rethinking on the alliance is possible as the elections approach.

The Congress has however said that it will contest the Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh on its own.

WHAT HAPPENS TO GRAND ALLIANCE

Exclusion from the SP-BSP alliance may come as a setback for the Congress. It has been trying to galvanise support from regional parties and rope them in to form a grand alliance (Mahagathbandhan) that can challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

With the SP and the BSP, two major parties from the numerically significant state of Uttar Pradesh, ditching it to form a separate alliance, the Congress may have tough time ahead in convincing other regional parties to join a potential grand alliance.

The SP and the BSP have been important allies of the Congress in the past.
On the other hand, regional parties like the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) have welcomed the SP-BSP alliance.

West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC president Mamata Banerjee said, "I welcome the alliance of the SP and the BSP for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections."

Similarly, RJD leader and Leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly Tejashwi Yadav said, "The beginning of BJP's defeat has started from UP and Bihar."

SP-BSP's MESSAGE FOR BJP

Announcing the alliance, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav attacked the BJP and accused it of unleashing an undeclared emergency in the country. Mayawati said the Rafale deal will ensure that the BJP is defeated in the Lok Sabha polls.

"Just as the Bofors scam uprooted the Congress, the BJP will witness the same fate because of its involvement in the Rafale scam," Mayawati said.

Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. "This press conference will rob the guru-chela of their sleep," Mayawati said.

"I have full confidence that just as our alliance defeated the BJP in the Lok Sabha bypolls, we will crush the saffron party in the general elections," she said, referring to the BJP's defeat in the recently held Phulpur, Gorakhpur and Kairana parliamentary bypolls.

HOW HAS BJP RESPONDED

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has rubbished the SP-BSP alliance and termed it an alliance for survival. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the SP-BSP alliance was a "coalition of casteist, corrupt and opportunistic mindset". He said this alliance "doesn't want development and good governance".

"People know everything and this unholy alliance will be given a perfect answer [in 2019 Lok Sabha polls]," he said.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the two parties have came together just for their own survival. "They know they cannot fight Modi on their own and their opposition to him is the sole base for their alliance,"

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