Prime Minister, even Mayawati is fielding questions, when will you?

Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi take a cue from Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati? The BSP chief’s readiness to entertain questions at her press conference on Saturday surprised both political circles and the media, because her media interactions so far used to be confined to her monologue.

Even BJP insiders were overheard asking aloud cheekily if Prime Minister Modi, who has not addressed a single press conference or fielded a question, would now begin entertaining questions.

In the past, Mayawati would arrive, take her seat, read out her statement and leave. But on Saturday she stayed back and encouraged journalists to ask her any question. She took the opportunity to signal that the SP-BSP alliance was intact despite the loss of her nominee to the Rajya Sabha.

She also sent out a warning to the BJP and declared that she would give BJP sleepless nights. Her public statements brightened the prospect of a broader opposition unity in the next general election and marked a new turning point in the politics of the state, which has been marked by frosty relationship between the two regional parties for almost a quarter century.

Akhilesh Yadav had called on Mayawati to thank her for pledging BSP’s support to SP candidates in the byelections to the Lok Sabha in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. Mayawati reciprocated by declaring that old grudges were better forgotten and she could not blame Akhilesh for what happened in the state in the nineties.

A visibly relaxed and confident Mayawati added, “The loss in Rajya Sabha poll cannot be equated with the defeat BJP suffered in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha byelections because in those elections people directly voted in favour of our alliance while in the Rajya Sabha election BJP, being in the government at both the Centre and the state, misused its power to defeat the BSP candidate.”

There were other signs that Akhilesh Yadav too was walking the extra mile to cement the alliance. A celebratory dinner planned in honour of Jaya Bachchan, who was again elected to the Rajya Sabha on SP ticket, was called off following the defeat of the BSP candidate. And the Samajwadi Party president conspicuously deleted a tweet congratulating the controversial MLA from Pratapgarh ‘Raja Bhaiya’ after Mayawati reminded Akhilesh Yadav of the MLA’s past record.