Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati said on Monday that her party would go it alone in elections, seeking to quell speculation about her planning to join the Opposition INDIA bloc

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said at a news conference in Lucknow on her 68th birthday: “We will not be a part of any alliance and will contest alone. This is because alliance politics doesn’t suit us. The BSP will contest alone with the support of the Dalit, tribal, backward and minority communities.”

“According to our analysis, while we have transferred our traditional votes to the candidates of our allies in previous elections, they didn’t reciprocate,” she said, alleging that the majority of the political parties except the BSP were communal and casteist.

She accused the BJP governments of cheating the poor. “While the BJP government is expected to create job opportunities for youths, it is making poor people a slave of free foodgrains,” Mayawati said.

The Narendra Modi government has been running the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana since April 2020 to provide 5kg of free foodgrains to over 81 crore people under the National Food Security Act.

Sources in the BSP said Mayawati had not yet taken the final decision on contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone.

“She should be made the convener of the alliance, or the Congress should declare her name as the PM nominee of INDIA if they want her to be a part of the non-BJP coalition,” a BSP leader who didn’t want to be named said.

Mayawati, who has been invited to the Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22, said she had not yet decided whether to attend the event.

“I thank them for sending me the invitation. I may go there if I am free but I have not decided yet because I am busy with party work,” she told the news conference.

“We are not opposing the Ayodhya programme, we welcome it. We will also welcome any move to construct a Babri masjid there,” she added.