The BJP on Saturday said the SP and the BSP joined hands for their survival, and not for the country or Uttar Pradesh. It also downplayed assertions that the alliance will have a major impact on the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. It said that any grand alliance of Opposition parties against the BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will bring in anarchy, corruption and political instability.

Addressing a Press conference on the second day of the BJP National Council meeting, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the BSP and the SP alliance is for their survival. It is not in the interest of the country or Uttar Pradesh.”

Prasad said that the parties know that they cannot fight Modi and so have formed the alliance. Prasad also rejected claims made by BSP chief Mayawati and SP president  Akhilesh Yadav that their coming together will have a major impact on the parliamentary poll results. “Elections are not about mathematics but chemistry,” he said.

The Minister’s remarks came soon after BSP supremo Mayawati and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, at a joint Presser in Lucknow, announced the alliance saying they will contest the coming Lok Sabha polls together in Uttar Pradesh sharing 38 seats each of the 80 in the state, while leaving Rae Bareli and Amethi for the Congress, which has been kept out of the alliance.

Reacting on the alliance, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said “This is a coalition of casteist, corrupt and opportunistic mindset that doesn’t want development and good governance. “Public knows everything and this unholy alliance will be given a perfect answer. Any grand alliance of Opposition parties against the BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will bring in anarchy, corruption and political instability. Those who who did not like each other are talking about a maha  gathbandhan (grand alliance). This is an alliance for corruption,  anarchy and political instability,” Yogi said .

Yogi asserted that in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the BJP will perform better than it did in 2014 and a “strong and capable” Government under Modi’s leadership will be formed again. “Ask any impartial person — a rural woman, a solider, a farmer or youth — they will all say ‘Kaho Dil Se Modi Phir Se’ (they will vouch for bringing in Modi once again).”

BJP leader and UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya termed the SP-BSP joining hands as an “alliance of corruption and goondaism”. “And let me make it clear that people are solidly behind Modi and  the BJP will do better than it did in 2014. The backward community is backing Modi,” he said at the national convention. The parties kept the Congress out of the alliance, but said they will not field candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by  Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won 71 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the State.