Mayawati praises Yogi in speech; says no alliance for 2027 polls

BSP president Mayawati announced that her party would contest the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections independently, without entering into any alliances while addressing a massive rally held at the Kanshi Ram memorial in Lucknow on Thursday.

She called on party leaders and workers to intensify their efforts to bring the BSP back to power and enable her to become Chief Minister for a fifth term.

The event, organised on the 19th death anniversary of BSP founder Kanshi Ram, marked Mayawati’s first major rally in four years.

Targeting the Samajwadi Party, she criticised its president Akhilesh Yadav for what she described as political double standards, cautioning her supporters against trusting “two-faced” leaders, the Indian Express reported.

She alleged that while Akhilesh was now trying to reach out to Dalits and invoke their icons, during his tenure as Chief Minister he had ignored the Pichhda, Dalits and Alpsankhyak (PDA) communities, his current plank, and the commemoration of the birth and death anniversaries of Kanshi Ram.

Mayawati further claimed that the SP government had renamed districts and institutions earlier dedicated to Kanshi Ram and failed to utilise memorial funds for their upkeep. She questioned the SP’s reported plans to hold a seminar on Kanshi Ram, pointing out that such gestures came only after losing power.

Mayawati appreciated the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh for maintaining the Kanshi Ram memorial. She noted that the current administration had continued to use funds generated from ticket sales at memorials built during her tenure for their upkeep, unlike the previous Samajwadi Party government, which she alleged had withheld such funds, resulting in deterioration.

At the same time, she accused the BJP-led Centre of attempting to tarnish her and her family’s image by allegedly implicating them in corruption cases through the CBI and Income Tax department. She added that similar actions had also been taken against her during the Congress rule.

Mayawati further emphasised that her government had focused on uplifting deprived sections of society without making them reliant on free rations, which she described as currently being distributed by the central government using taxpayers’ money.

Positioning herself as the sole political heir of Kanshi Ram, Mayawati urged her supporters to remain wary of emerging Dalit leaders and their parties, whom she described as “saleable” and part of a conspiracy to fragment the Dalit vote.

In a veiled reference to Chandrashekhar Aazad, the Nagina MP and founder of the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), she cautioned voters not to waste their votes on such leaders, saying that doing so would ultimately help rival parties.

On the question of alliances, she stated that the BSP would contest the upcoming elections independently. She argued that past tie-ups, whether with the SP in 1993 or the Congress in 1997, had not yielded benefits since BSP votes had transferred to its partners, while their caste-based votes had not reciprocated.

She added that coalition governments with the SP and the BJP had also proved unstable. In contrast, she pointed to the 2007 elections, when the BSP, contesting alone, secured 206 out of 403 seats and formed a majority government, as the basis for the decision to go solo again.

Recalling that 2007 mandate, Mayawati told party members that political power was essential for addressing the concerns of the Dalit community.

Quoting Ambedkar on the importance of securing the “key of power,” she stressed that political strength was the “master key” for resolving the issues of deprived groups.

She also highlighted that her government between 2007 and 2012 worked for Dalits, tribals, backward classes, minorities, and other vulnerable communities, but claimed that opponents had sought to weaken the BSP for that very reason.