New Delhi: In a warning perceived to be targeted at the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Thursday sought to remind members of the anti-Bharatiya Janata Party INDIA bloc that one never knows when they will need each other.

Mayawati has so far maintained an equidistant position from both the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and the INDIA bloc, which includes the Congress and the SP, when it comes to contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

In a statement on Thursday, Mayawati said it was not proper for political parties and their leaders to make “meaningless” comments on those political parties not part of the INDIA bloc, including her own party BSP.

“My advice to them is to refrain from it because one can never say who will need whom in the future for the sake of public interest and the country,” said Mayawati.

The former four-time Uttar Pradesh chief minister said leaders and parties who make such comments might have to face embarrassment later.

“The Samajwadi Party is a living example of this,” said Mayawati, targeting her fellow UP party with whom she has shared a complicated relationship over the last three decades.

As things stand, the INDIA bloc in UP comprises of the SP, Congress and Rashtriya Lok Dal. The BSP supremo has on numerous occasions stressed that her party will contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election on its own strength, without entering into any alliance.

Her latest attack on the SP can be interpreted in two ways. First, it could cement her earlier political stand of maintaining distance from both blocs. This could be in her bid to augment the BSP’s bargaining power ahead of the election, especially in UP, where despite its downfall it still controls a substantial chunk of the Dalit vote. For the INDIA bloc, that would be crucial against the might of the BJP, which has three regional OBC-based party allies – Nishad Party, Apna Dal (Soneyal) and the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party – to supplement its votes.

Second, Mayawati’s warning on future political equations could be mere posturing amid statements by non-BJP parties questioning her commitment to defeating the BJP, but also an indication of her preparing the ground to warm up to the INDIA bloc, which is likely to witness a new flux after the Congress’s defeat at the hands of the BJP in the Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh state elections.

UP has 80 Lok Sabha seats. Given the long political history of the main four parties, especially the non-BJP Opposition parties SP, BSP and Congress in the state, seat-sharing becomes a complicated issue with contesting claims and overlapping electoral strongholds. The inclusion of the RLD, which is based in parts of West UP, makes the equation even more complicated.

In such a scenario, achieving a water-tight seat-sharing formula that involves all constituents of INDIA plus the BSP, if it happens, seems like a task in itself.

While Mayawati has not fully revealed her cards, a party MP Shyam Singh Yadav expressed his personal opinion that the BSP should join the INDIA bloc. Yadav was among the 15 MPs who won in 2019 as part of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance.

“There is no doubt that if all contest together [in UP, the INDIA bloc] will be able to give a good fight [to the BJP],” Yadav told a news agency out Parliament on December 19.

Mayawati’s resistance to join INDIA, despite her falling fortunes and hopeless prospects if she fights alone, have regularly received jibes from parts of the Opposition, in particular the SP which has accused the BSP of playing into the hands of the BJP.

Until Mayawati distances herself from the BJP, there can be no alliance with the BSP, said Shivpal Singh Yadav, senior SP leader, recently.

In a long post on X (formerly Twitter), Akash Anand, Mayawati’s nephew and BSP’s national coordinator, on December 20 reiterated that the BSP, in order to protect the constitution and democracy in the country in the present scenario, “won’t enter any settlement”.

Anand also distanced the BSP from the INDIA bloc, saying that the party will not let the country’s democracy become the “jagir (estate)” of two parties.

“I want to make it clear that the BSP does not believe in the politics of hate of the alliance seeking votes by showing the fear of the BJP. Because there was a time when some people gained power by showing the fear of the Congress, and the entire county is paying the cost of it,” he said.

The BSP leader also said that “no political party has the power to ignore the Dalit community”.