Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav's decision to join hands with TMC supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and lead a possible 'third front' sans Congress in Uttar Pradesh to counter the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls may encounter electoral turbulence. The BSP, another major player in UP, has already declared that it will go solo in the next general elections.
BSP had contested the 2019 LS polls in alliance with the SP and managed to win ten seats with a vote share of around 20 per cent. In the 2017 assembly polls in UP, BSP had not allied with any party and could win only one seat. Its vote share had also declined to around 13 per cent in the assembly polls.
While it might appear to some that the BSP was losing ground in India's biggest and politically most crucial state, the party had played spoilsport in the last year's LS bypoll in Azamgarh seat, which had been vacated by Akhilesh, and had cornered a large chunk of Muslim votes resulting in the victory of the BJP nominee in the SP stronghold.
''Our party will not have any alliance in the forthcoming assembly elections in some states and in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and will contest them on its own,'' Mayawati had said recently.
Although Akhilesh and BSP supremo Mayawati had joined hands in UP in the 2019 LS elections, their bonhomie did not last long and the two leaders had been engaged in a verbal duel since its breaking.
Akhilesh a few days ago accused Mayawati of having a tacit alliance with the BJP. ''It is well known who decides the tickets of BSP candidates,'' Akhilesh recently said, apparently hinting that the BSP tickets were decided by the saffron party.
Congress, though, with a meagre six per cent vote share, no longer a major player in UP, could also hit the SP in pockets where it had some influence. In the 2019 LS polls, the winning margin of the BJP nominees on at least eight seats was less than the votes polled by the Congress candidates on those seats.
Akhilesh has stitched an alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and had also roped in firebrand Dalit leader Chandrashekhar alias Ravan, who has considerable influence over his community votes in around half a dozen western UP districts. The SP-RLD-Chandrashekhar alliance had tasted success in last year's assembly bypoll on the Khatauli seat in UP by wresting it from the BJP.
It remains to be seen if Akhilesh's decision to lead the third front in UP and dent BJP's prospects in the state in the 2024 LS polls succeeds.