Hurling allegations of horse-trading and blackmailing, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati said on Saturday that the BJP did not leave any means to attract votes for its 9th Rajya Sabha candidate. She also asserted that the results of the Rajya Sabha will not affect her party's ties with the Samajwadi Party (SP).

"Besides horse-trading, many MLAs were also threatened in the name of ED and CBI. BJP only aims to break our relationship but I would like to assure that we will contest the 2019 elections with double the strength," Maya said.

To revenge the defeat of the Phulpur and Gorakhpur by-elections, BJP went down to the lowest level and conspired against us, she added. It is to be mentioned that besides its eight candidates, the BJP also won the 9th Rajya Sabha seat by defeating the BSP candidate in a dramatic sequence of events.

While one MLA each of BSP, SP and Nishad Party openly crossvoted for BJP, independent MLA Amanmani Tripathi also voted for BJP. There were also speculations that a Congress MLA and an independent MLA, loyal to Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, also voted for BJP.

Two votes were also cancelled due to scribbles and marks on the ballet paper reducing the genuine votes to 398.

Maya also went ahead to question the loyalty of Raja Bhaiya and said that he is a man who could not be trusted.

"Akhilesh is new in politics and he should not have trusted Raja Bhaiya. If he was handled tactfully, the results could have been different. Akhilesh will gradually mature," she said.

It is to be mentioned that before casting his vote, Raja tweeted to express his loyalty to Akhilesh but he also went ahead to add that 'this does not mean that he will stand along with BSP'.

Interestingly, Akhilesh also thanked Raja for casting his vote for the BSP candidate and posted his picture along with Raja on Tweeter. However, soon after Maya expressed his discontent for Raja, he removed the picture. "BJP will have sleepless nights after this press conference as they were having misconceptions that the results of the Rajya Sabha will affect our (SP-BSP)ties.

We will come up more strongly and teach them a lesson in 2019," she said. Maya also went ahead to defend Akhilesh and said that it is not correct to drag him in the state guest house episode.

"Akhilesh was not in politics at that time and he is still new. If BJP is so concerned about that incident, then why it has appointed the officer (OP Singh) as the DGP who was at that time the SSP of Lucknow. Is BJP planning something similar to terrorise us?" questioned Maya.

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