PTI NEW DELHI BAHUJAN Samaj Party on Saturday indicated that it would not be aligning itself with any Third Front in the President’s election or the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

“Our party has not thought about. We are not going to fall into traps”, party supremo Mayawati told a press conference when asked whether she would initiate any move for formation of a non-NDA and non-UPA alliance for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

She also sounded dismissive about the candidature of former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma floated by parties BJD and AIADMK.

“I am hearing about Sangma from you only or through the newspapers. But there is no clarity. So what can I say,” was her response when asked whether her party would support the tribal leader’s candidature.

However, the BSP chief offered to support a candidate for the post of President who fits into her party’s “line of movement.’’ She did not take any names though the names of Vice-President M Hamid Ansari and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee are on the table of the Congress for the Presidential election, slated for July.
“As soon as the candidates of the UPA and NDA are clear, we will take a decision to support a candidate who suits BSP’s line of movement. When it is not clear who is the candidate of UPA or NDA, what should I say about the merits or demerits of a particular candidate,’’ Mayawati, who is also a Rajya Sabha member , said.

BSP has 21 members in the Lok Sabha and 15 members in the Rajya Sabha. It also has 80 members in the UP State Legislative Assembly. She parried a question on whether the BSP would support Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee if he enters the fray as the UPA candidate.

Earlier, after a studied silence of two months, Mayawati came down heavily on the Samajwadi Party government UP, claiming a complete breakdown of law and order in the state. She attacked the two-month-old government of Akhilesh Yadav and said loot, arson, murder, kidnapping, extortion and dacoity had become routine and people were regretting having voted for the Samajwadi Party.

True to her style, she read out from a written text and dished out statistics to strengthen her case. She said in the past two months, 800 murders, 270 rapes, 256 kidnappings and 720 cases of loot had take place, and criminals who were behind bars when she was in office had been released.

“We always knew that people of UP would within one year repent voting SP to power.

But now within two months, the disappointment is writ large on their faces,” the former chief minister said.

Accusing Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav of toeing his father Mulayam Singh Yadav’s line, Mayawati said people were scared in the state to venture out in the evening.

Charging the government with political vendetta, she said a Samajwadi Party flag on a car amounted to “a licence to kill”.

She accused Akhilesh Yadav of managing the media to highlight the government’s socalled achievements. “This government is working on paper and through loud pronouncements only,” she said, adding the new government had ended 26 welfare schemes run by her government in 13 departments.

Asked why she was still supporting the UPA when Congress had campaigned against her in the state, Mayawati said that for her, “personal welfare comes later and national interest first”.