india

Updated: Jan 30, 2019 17:15 IST

Mocking at the alliance between the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh for 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Wednesday said “two UP boys” had joined hands earlier also during the assembly polls, when “our workers crushed them” winning 325 seats for the BJP.

“Two UP boys had come together during assembly election. But the BJP workers crushed the alliance to win 325 seats for the party and install a BJP government in Uttar Pradesh,” Amit Shah said making a reference to an alliance between the Congress and the SP during 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had then announced that theirs was “an alliance of youth” for betterment of Uttar Pradesh.

Amit Shah described the alliance between the BSP and the SP as one of “crime, corruption and caste”. The two parties announced, earlier this month, that they would contest 38 seats each in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the Lok Sabha.

“Now another alliance is in place. This one is of crime, corruption and caste. The forces which left the UP regressive and non performing due their caste based politics have come together… Two have joined hands and two others will also join. Let them come together, the BJP is well prepared at the booth level. Whoever wants to unite, they may do so, the BJP cadre is ready for the battle of 50 per cent (vote share),” he said.

The BJP president hit out at the regional parties trying to forge a united front to challenge the political might of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha elections saying “they don’t have a leader or policy” to take the nation forward. Shah said while the BJP and NDA are clear about its prime ministerial candidate, the opposition parties are fighting among themselves.

“Everyone knows who our leader is. But no one knows who could be their (Opposition’s) prime ministerial candidate. I tell you what will happen if they win the election, Behenji (a reference often used for Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati) will be the PM on Monday. Akhileshji will be the PM on Tuesday…(Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister) Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, (NCP president) Sharad Pawar on Thursday, (Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former PM) Deve Gowda on Friday and (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader) MK Stalin will be the PM on Saturday, and the nation will go on a holiday on Sundays,” said Amit Shah taunting the regional parties, whose leaders recently converged at the United India rally convened in Kolkata.

“They are thinking about leading the country but they don’t have a leader or a policy to do so,” Shah said.

Addressing the party workers in Kanpur, Amit Shah set an ambitious target of winning 74 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The party had won 73 in 2014 parliamentary polls.

The Kanpur meet of the BJP’s booth-level workers was also attended by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy CMs Keshav Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, Union minister and BJP’s UP in-charge JP Nadda and other senior party functionaries.

However, Kanpur MP Murali Manohar Joshi was not present on the dias. The faces of LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi were missing from the posters and cut outs. A hoarding of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was added at the last minute at the venue of the rally.

The Kanpur-Bundelkhand regions has 17 districts comprising 10 Lok Sabha consituencies having 20, 811 polling booths. Shah left Kanpur for Lucknow to address cadres of Oudh region that comprises 15 districts and has about 33,000 polling booths. The meetings were part of the BJP president’s plan to hold six booth-level meetings of the party cadre in Uttar Pradesh.

Amit Shah is expected to be back in Uttar Pradesh on February 2 to address booth-level cadres of western UP in Amroha. This meet would be followed by another at Etah in the Braj region on February 6.

The BJP president would address another rally of party workers in Kashi region (having parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi) on February 8. The rally will be held at Jaunpur. He will address a public meeting at Maharajganj in Gorakhpur region (the stronghold of CM Aditynath).