Alliance With Akhilesh Yadav For Lok Sabha Polls On, Mayawati Tells NDTV

Bengaluru: Mayawati, the Dalit powerhouse of Uttar Pradesh, has told NDTV in an exclusive interview that the long-expected alliance with Akhilesh Yadav for next year's Lok Sabha election is on. An announcement will be made as soon as the two parties take a call on seat sharing. With that, and a tie-up in south with HD Deve Gowda's Janata Dal Secular, the 62-year-old has carved a prime spot for herself in a non-Congress, non-BJP faction that can potentially give her the platform to stake claim as India's first Dalit woman prime minister.

Leaders of the JD(S) are hailing her as the "nucleus" of the non-Congress non-BJP faction for the 2019 election.

Asked when the arrangement with Akhilesh Yadav will be announced, Mayawati told NDTV's Prannoy Roy, "There is time for parliament election... When the election draws near, we will adjust seats and then declare". The Bahujan Samaj Party chief was in Karnataka to campaign for the JD(S) for the assembly elections which will be held on May 12.

Ms Mayawati at his side, HD Kumaraswamy, the son of former Prime Minister Deve Gowda, said the election in Karnataka is going to take an unexpected turn and it would provide an opportunity for "take-off for the centre". 

His party's senior leader Kunwar Danish Ali said among the regional parties, "Behenji is the only leader who is an all-India phenomenon". "The Bahujan Samaj Party, under the leadership of Behen Mayawati-ji is the only party which can unite the forces. So she will be the nucleus for the 2019 election," he added.
 Ms Mayawati's electoral understanding with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav for the recent by-elections in Uttar Pradesh trumped the BJP. The party had lost the seats held by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Pradhan Maurya -- Gorakhpur and Phulpur.

The potent alliance could be a huge disruptor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plans for re-election given that UP elects 80 MPs, more than any other state, and the recent whopping defeat in Gorakhpur was a test case that proved that the BJP can be defeated even in its strongholds in India's most-populous state if Mr Yadav and Ms Mayawati combine their support groups.

But the BSP's loss in the Rajya Sabha elections that followed, despite Akhilesh Yadav's support for its candidate, put a damper on their ties. Mayawati made her displeasure known and the two parties decided to go it solo in Karnataka.

On Sunday, Ms Maywati said the unity of the secular forces is "frightening" the BJP and its ideological mentor, the RSS. "These communal forces, they won't like it that secular forces get united, organized and move forward," she told NDTV.