Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has been unable to win a single seat in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, signalling the loss of its core Dalit votes to other parties. Now, BSP has moved into an alliance with Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) for the Haryana assembly elections scheduled to commence later this year, the leaders of the two parties announced on Thursday. The alliance leaders have also decided to highlight INLD leader Abhay Chautala as its chief ministerial face. Under the arrangement, out of 90 assembly seats in Haryana, the BSP will contest 37 seats, leaving the rest for its senior partner in Haryana, where the ruling BJP is eyeing to come to power for third time in a row. Soon after the announcement, Mayawati said in a post on X that the BSP and INLD will work together to defeat anti-people parties and form a new coalition government. The two parties had contested the 2024 Lok Sabha polls separately in Haryana and fared very poorly. The INLD contested seven seats in the state while the BSP fielded candidates in nine parliamentary constituencies. The INLD’s vote share in Haryana in the general election was 1.74 percent, while the BSP had a vote share of 1.28 percent.
