Mayawati not to contest UP assembly elections

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati will not fight the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, said BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, adding that he himself will not contest.

Citing reasons for Mayawati staying away from the polls, Mishra said that since assembly elections are being organised in others states as well, including Punjab and Uttarakhand, the BSP president has decided to focus on helping party candidates win.

Mishra said that BSP will make a clean sweep this time, like it did in 2007, and come back to power on the strength of its social engineering formula. He said the party will contest all 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh and it is at present in the process of finalising its list of candidates.

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Mishra, who is a Rajya Sabha member, said he too has decided not to contest the state election that is set to be held in seven phases between February 10 and March 7.

For records, Mayawati has never contested an Assembly election in the past. At present, she is neither a member of Rajya Sabha nor the state council.