While Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has declared that her party will go alone in the assembly elections in eight states scheduled for this year as well as the 2024 general elections, her party leaders, especially MPs, want the BSP to be a part of the front of all major opposition parties being cobbled up by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and others, driven by their need to safeguard their prospects in the 2024 polls.

Kunwar Danish Ali, BSP MP from Amroha on Tuesday, tweeted a picture of the JDS-Congress oath-taking ceremony in 2018 which had Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati, former Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, former Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy and Ali himself in the frame.

“It was a memorable moment for me to host stalwarts from opposition parties at the Vidhana Soudha Bengaluru on this day in 2018 on the occasion of the oath-taking ceremony of JDS-Congress government in Karnataka. The need for opposition unity is greater today than ever before. Let’s all unite,” Ali tweeted, in a departure to Mayawati’s stance on the matter.

While Ali made his opinion on the issue known publicly, another BSP MP ET spoke to on conditions of anonymity, while acknowledging that the party’s performance in the assembly and urban local body polls have been “abysmal”, also said that without the BSP’s 13% vote share in UP, opposition unity makes no sense.

“BSP is the pivot in the unity,” he said. The MP said that while Mayawati has been told the same by party leaders and MPs, there is a virtual stalemate as of now with the BSP supremo’s declaration of not willing to ally as well as opposition leaders’ lack of effort to try to get her on board too.