‘SP feud in BJP’s favour; will end its vanvas in UP’

The factional feud in Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh is turning out to be “very much favourable” for the BJP and will help in ending its 14-year-old political “vanvas” in the poll-bound state, party national vice-president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe said on Tuesday.

He said besides SP, the Mayawati-led BSP and Congress under its vice-president Rahul Gandhi are not in reckoning in the power race.

“Whatever is unfolding in UP, it’s turning out to be very much favourable for our party. Samajwadi Party, which was in a position to give a little bit of fight in the elections, is nowhere in the frey now. People were having some positive opinion about Akhilesh’s so called good governance, but all that has blown into air,” he told a press conference.

The Rajya Sabha MP said the turf war between the two factions--led by SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his chief minister son Akhilesh Yadav--will end the “vanvaas” (exile) of the BJP of last 14 years. Rajnath Singh was the last BJP chief minister in Uttar Pradesh in 2002.

Taking a dig at current bickering in the first family of UP politics, Sahasrabuddhe said, “Both tyres of SP’s cycle (its poll symbol, which is now disputed) are already punctured. (Moreover) recent war within that party has dismantled both its wheels as a result of which the voters are very much aware that SP is not even in the race.”