Mayawati spares SP from criticism, says focus on national parties

As she lashed out at the BJP and the Congress at a press conference here to mark her 64th birthday, BSP chief Mayawati stopped short of criticising Samajwadi Party with which she was in a short-lived alliance. When asked about her “silence” on the SP, Mayawati said she will speak only on national issues and national parties.

"My birthday is celebrated as 'Jan Kalyankari Diwas’ (Welfare Day) across the country and hence most of the speech pertains to the Centre and the burning issues before the country,” she said.

She said if she spoke about Uttar Pradesh government and state-level politics, it will consume the “same amount of time”. During the press conference, she said the BJP and the Congress were “two sides of the same coin”. She also blamed the state’s BJP government of working against the interest of the people who faced hardship because of its “narrow-mindedness” and wrong decisions. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav wished Mayawati on her birthday through Twitter.

"Greetings to national president of Bahujan Samaj Party Mayawati ji on her birthday," the tweet in Hindi said.

Mayawati had forged an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav’s party just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last May, after years of bitter rivalry. But the alliance unravelled soon after the results were declared, with the BSP doing worse than the SP in Uttar Pradesh. The two sides fought against each other in the assembly bypolls.