Mayawati puts off her visit to Delhi

LUCKNOW: A day after most exit polls predicted an NDA victory in the LS polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav called on gathbandhan partner and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati at her residence around noon on Monday, hours before she was to leave for Delhi, and held a 70-minute closed-door meeting with her.


Shortly after the meeting, the BSP camp confirmed that Mayawati had postponed her plan to go to Delhi as per her earlier schedule till further notice.

“We will talk after the results on May 23. I still stick to what I said earlier, that we will win 56 of the 80 seats in UP,” Akhilesh told reporters after the meeting.

Mayawati later dispatched her lieutenant, party general secretary Satish Chandra Misra, to hold the fort in Delhi on her behalf along with SP principal general secretary

Ram Gopal Yadav

.

There was, however, no clarity on whether SP and BSP would skip the meeting convened by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for the day of the results or whether it would be attended by their representatives.