NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: Less than five months after BSP and SP buried over two decades of animosity to hammer out an alliance to defeat BJP, the much-hyped “permanent gathbandhan” has run into troubled waters with BSP chief Mayawati asking her cadre to “be prepared” to contest bypolls to 11 seats in the UP assembly, and triggering talk that it may be splitsville soon. She also asked BSP workers to be ready to contest all 403 seats in the 2022 assembly polls.The decision to contest bypolls on its own is crucial since BSP usually does not contest bypolls and made an exception only in 2007 when it contested the Farrukhabad seat.At the meeting of elected representatives, Mayawati asked her cadre “not to depend on anyone”. Though there was no formal call to end the gathbandhan and the BSP chief said she was “very unhappy” that the SP did not perform as well as it should have, practical concerns about her own and her party’s future seemed to trump worries about strained ties with Akhilesh Yadav .Mayawati’s post-poll address dwelt on the split in the Yadav vote-bank because of internal warring in SP and Akhilesh’s uncle Shivpal Yadav parting ways with him. The Dalit leader with prime ministerial aspirations also said BSP will analyse the extent to which Shivpal, who formed Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party before elections, cut into SP’s traditional votes and impacted gathbandhan’s vote share.“Yadav votes were not transferred to us but our votes went to them. Samajwadi Party won where Muslims voted big for them,” she said.“Gathbandhan’s success was contingent on SP chief Akhilesh Yadav having complete sway over the Yadav community votes. However, this did not happen because of the internal problems in SP,” a source quoted Mayawati as having told her party representatives.A party worker said, “Mayawati said Akhilesh failed to ensure victory of family members”, alluding to electoral losses of three SP family members— Akhilesh’s spouse Dimple and cousins Dharmendra and Akshay from Kannauj, Badaun and Firozabad respectively.Another party member added: “Mayawati said the cadre insisted on an alliance, but her own experience with alliances has never been good. She referred to BSP’s tie-up with Samajwadi Party in 1993 to argue BSP fared poorly when in an alliance.”Samajwadi Party was also caught off-guard. Party president Akhilesh Yadav, on a thanks-giving visit to Azamgarh, said he had no idea about the development. “People are with us. Massive groundwork needs to be done to defeat BJP. I am camping at the Circuit House to meet party workers,” he said.The two parties and RLD came together after testing ground in Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls in 2018, with the troika eventually depending on caste arithmetic to see them through. Between the three, however, they managed to win 15 seats in Lok Sabha, with BSP bagging 10 — up from zero in 2014 — and SP retaining five seats only to lose three family-owned seats.However, sources said Mayawati was unhappy with the poll results as she had been expecting more than 20 seats for BSP. “We appreciate SP’s efforts, but the success of the alliance depends on vote transfer. If that did not happen, it may be better for BSP to contest on its own,” said a party member.On Monday, Mayawati also made structural changes to its Uttar Pradesh party unit. The state has been divided into four sectors — West, Lucknow, Varanasi and Gorakhpur. She also rotated zonal in-charges. On Sunday, she replaced in-charges of BSP units in Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Gujarat and Rajasthan along with three state presidents of Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. BSP failed to win a single seat outside UP in the recent Lok Sabha elections.