Samajwadi Party termed Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati’s unilateral announcement to end the alliance as ‘good riddance’.

The SP also  dismissed charges levelled by Mayawati against party president Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav as “frivolous and preposterous”.

Soon after Mayawati announced that the BSP would contest the upcoming Assembly bypolls in UP on its own, sources in the SP said that the party was gearing up to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party alone in UP.

“For two decades, we have contested all elections on our strength and we will continue to do so,” said Samajwadi Party MP from Moradabad, ST Hasan.

Dismissing Mayawati’s allegations that the SP president had asked her not to give tickets to Muslim candidates, Hasan said, “Akhilesh Yadav never made this kind of conversation on phone or in person. We want to remind the BSP chief that her party had no representation in the last Lok Sabha and due to its alliance with SP, her party could win 10 seats in 2019.”

Meanwhile, SP MP from Rampur, Mohammad Azam Khan, said that his party had so far said nothing about the alliance — its success or failure.

“If Mayawati wants to contest the bypolls to 12 UP Assembly seats alone, we have no problem. The BSP has right to fix its own political priorities. Mayawati lacks political depth and is fickle. We expected this kind of behaviour from her after the elections.”

Sources in SP also claimed that it was inappropriate of Mayawati to blame SP for the electoral loss in general elections. “It was the BSP that failed to transfer its core vote bank to SP candidates. We suspect that the BSP has lost hold over its core voters, the Scheduled Caste community,” they said.

Commenting on Mayawati’s statements, a senior SP leader said, “There is nothing unexpected about her statements. She always uses this kind of language when she falls out with a party or leader. The question is if she knew these facts, why did she forge alliance in the first place?”

After calling off the BSP’s alliance with the SP, Mayawati has been critical of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, dubbing him as ‘anti-Muslim’.

She also alleged that Akhilesh had asked her not to give tickets to Muslims as it would result in religious polarisation, but she did not listen to him.

The BSP chief also said that Akhilesh she called him on counting day but he did not answer her calls. She further said that Akhilesh called BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra after the party announced its decision to go it alone in UP Assembly bypolls, but did not speak with her.