Open to alliance with Cong for Punjab Assembly polls: BSP

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) may forge an alliance with the Congress in Punjab if it gets a ‘good proposal’ from the party in the run-up to Assembly elections next year, state BSP chief Avtar Singh Karimpuri said on Friday. 

Karimpuri claimed that the party is working with the sole agenda of uprooting the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance from state politics and could come on board with Congress.

“Punjab Congress Chief Capt Amarinder Singh had recently said that they would want to join hands with the BSP. If we receive a good proposal from them, we can definitely form an alliance with them,” the former Rajya Sabha MP said.  He added the BSP has already started working to boot out the ‘anti-farmer, anti-Dalit’ government of SAD-BJP.

“We have a sole aim of dethroning the corrupt, anti-people, anti-farmer and anti-dalit government from power.Even people have become aware that till the time the current government is in power, no good will come to them,” Karimpuri said.

He said that all parties have started strengthening their ranks in the run up to elections next year and it would be too early to comment on forming coalitions and the possibility of a fourth front coming up.

“Anything is possible in the realm of politics. It would not be wise to comment on the possibility of the formation of a fourth front at this moment,” he said, adding that BSP will ally with any party which brings them a good proposal.

At present, the party’s main concern is to strengthen its presence on the ground level and improve their position in the state, Karimpuri said.

He dodged the issue of seat-sharing by stating that BSP would demand seats on the basis of the proposal brought to them. The Punjab BSP chief also ruled out any possibility of an alliance with SAD by asserting, “Our agenda is to bring down the ruling SAD-BJP out of power in the state. In such a scenario, there is no possibility of an alliance with the SAD.”