Mayawati said BSP may emerge the winner, instead of the BJP and Samajwadi Party.
Weeks before the Uttar Pradesh election result, former Chief Minister Mayawati and Union Home Minister Amit Shah's "mutual praise" has set speculation on fire as the BJP faces tough challengers in its re-election bid in India's biggest and most important state.
Asked to respond to Amit Shah's positive assessment of her campaign in an interview, Mayawati said today: "It is his badappan (magnanimity) that he has acknowledged the truth."
She added: "But I also want to tell him - in the three phases that have taken place in UP, the BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) has not just received Dalit and Muslim votes but we are also getting upper caste and backward caste votes. I want to tell him that."
Mayawati also gave a non-committal response to the BJP's claim of crossing 300 in the 403-seat UP assembly. "Only time will tell. Who knows, the BSP may emerge the winner, instead of the BJP and Samajwadi Party,"
The BSP chief's words for the Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav, whom she partnered with briefly for the 2019 national election before a bitter split, were far more pungent.
"The voters of UP have already rejected the Samajwadi Party as they know that whenever that party has come to power, there has been goonda raj (crime)," Mayawati told reporters.
On Tuesday, Amit Shah told News18 in an interview that Mayawati's relevance was "not lost".
The senior BJP leader was asked whether the BSP taking away some of the Dalit and Muslim votes would help his party in Uttar Pradesh.
"I do not know if this would be an advantage for the BJP or a loss. It depends on the seat...it is seat specific. But it's not true that Mayawati's relevance is over," Amit Shah said.
Mr Shah also said Mayawati's low key campaign did not mean her support base had entirely eroded.
The Samajwadi Party, which is the BJP's chief challenger in the polls, is banking on the Dalit-Muslim combo boosting its tally.