BJP: SP, BSP came together for their survival

New Delhi, Jan 12 The BJP Saturday said the SP and the BSP came together for their survival, and not for the nation or Uttar Pradesh, and made light of recommendations that the partnership will majorly affect the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

"The SP and BSP have allied neither for the nation nor for Uttar Pradesh, but for their survival. They know they can't battle Modi all alone and their opposition to him is the sole base of their union," senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

He also downplayed suggestions that the former arch rivals coming together will have any impact on the parliamentary polls, saying decisions are not about mathematics but chemistry.

Prasad made these remarks soon after BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav announced their alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, sharing 38 seats each out of the state's 80 parliamentary constituencies.

The parties kept the Congress out of the alliance, but said they will not field candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli, spoken to by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

The alliance left two more seats for smaller allies.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won 71 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state.