Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo trained her guns on the BSP-Samajwadi Party alliance detractors and said the ties between the two parties had been forged in national interest.

Mayawati said, “The BSP’s close ties with the Samajwadi Party are not for any selfish motive but in the national interest,” she said, emphasising that the opposition parties would have to work jointly to stop the BJP from coming to power at the Centre.

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She said the non-BJP parties should come together to address the problems suffered by the common people, including the poor and the youth because of the “wrong policies of the BJP-led central and state governments”.

The BSP supremo also launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks on Dalit icon and chairman of the Constitution-drafting committee, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, in his ‘Mann ki Baat’ programme on Sunday.

Terming PM Modi’s remark as an “eyewash”, Mayawati said the BJP had been continuously indulging in theatrics on issues related to Dalits and backwards in the last four years of governance.

“The country based on the principle of equality of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar can never be a reality under the government led by the BJP and the RSS as their mindset is narrow, communal and casteist which is against the very spirit of the Constitution,” she said.

On Saturday, Mayawati accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of misusing government machinery and creating an atmosphere of fear to defeat the BSP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections.

“BJP used everything in its power, misused its machinery and used unconstitutional methods to break the recent closeness between SP and BSP,” Mayawati told the media on Saturday.

Claiming that the lone BSP candidate, Bhim Rao Ambedkar, was defeated through conspiracy, Mayawati said that people are aware of the methods used by the BJP government at the Centre and the state to ensure their victory in the elections.

Mayawati had said that SP and BSP will continue to walk on the newly discovered common ground and that the Rajya Sabha loss has strengthened the resolve of both parties to defeat BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

(With agency inputs)