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BSP leader Mayawati waves to the crowd upon her arrival at an election rally. (MONEY SHARMA/AFP/Getty Images)
The much-touted rainbow alliance of opposition parties by Congress is already in tatters with many parties taking the solo route, but the grand shocker came from one of the heavyweight parties, BSP, who in a surprise move decided to field candidates for all of the 230 Assembly seats of Madhya Pradesh.
The party also announced names of 22 candidates who will fight elections in a bid to make it clear that it means business, reported the times of India.
BSP supremo Mayawati has decided that the party will go the solo in MP, and fight all assembly seats independently, said Party official Ramachal Rajbhar.
“BSP has declared names of 22 candidates today, and the remaining 208 candidates for the assembly elections here will be announced before October 5. Our party under the leadership of Behen Mayawati will contest all seats in the state with full strength and confidence,” Rajbhar told ToI.
This development comes as a big surprise to the Congress party which was confident of a pre-poll alliance with BSP. The party was planning seat sharing formula to forge an alliance for both assembly and parliamentary elections.
Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath, till last week, was claiming that talks are going on with the BSP and other regional parties, but it seems that they failed.
BSP had a significant vote share of 6.29 per cent of total votes polled in 2013 elections when it contested on 227 constituencies and won four seats.
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