Mayawati readies to head single-party-govt. in UP after 14 yrs

Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) emerged as the single largest party by winning 208 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Friday, becoming the first political outfit in the last 14 years to get absolute majority in the state.

Lucknow/New Delhi, May 11 : Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) emerged as the single largest party by winning 208 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Friday, becoming the first political outfit in the last 14 years to get absolute majority in the state.

The Samajwadi Party could just manage to get 96 seats, the BJP and allies 49, the Congress 21, and others 25. Results for three other seats are still awaited.

Meanwhile, the Congress party said that it would sit in the Opposition in the Assembly.

Party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi announced this, adding that the Congress will emerge as a big force in the future in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP Parliamentary Committee, which met amidst the poll debacle, has also accepted the public mandate, which came as a big surprise for the party.

Earlier this evening, taking a sarcastic dig at various exit polls that predicted a hung Assembly, Mayawati said that her party's 'tremendous' victory "is the victory of BSP's ideology of social inclusiveness and faith of the people of Uttar Pradesh in democracy."

Addressing a news conference at her party's office here after securing a majority in the Assembly elections, Mayawati said it was proud moment for her party and herself to know that Uttar Pradesh was finally coming out of nearly 14 years of coalition rule, and that the State would be governed by one party - the BSP.

"All credit for this should go to the people of the State, who appeared to be fed up of divisive politics, a system of governance that was guided by pulls and strings", she said, adding that the BSP would seek to provide "injustice free, corruption free, fear free governance that would strive for the development of the State.

Highlighting the rainbow social combination that she had been busy weaving in the past two years, it was symbolic to see her flanked by the BSP's national secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, a Brahmin leader, and BSP general secretary Nasimuddin Siddique, a Muslim leader.

Expressing thanks to her broadened support base that now include non-Jatav Dalits and some section of Other Backward Castes, Mayawati said, "Those political parties who asked for votes in the name of caste and religion have been decimated by the people of the State and have been given a befitting reply to all those mudslinging targeted at me during the campaigning."

She also had words of praise for the Election Commission (EC) and said that due to its non-partisan role, many Dalits were able to cast their votes this time, and this helped in restoring the people's faith in democracy.

Mayawati is set to become the Chief Minister of the State for the fourth time. She has been at the State's top post three times earlier -- briefly in 1995 and 1997, and from 2002 to 2003 with the support of the BJP.

This time, she has not contested for any Assembly seat.

Her first Lok Sabha membership came in 1989 and is presently representing UP in the Rajya Sabha.

ANI