New Delhi: Livid at his defeat in the recently held Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, former state minister Swami Prasad Maurya claimed “nag aur sanp ne milkar newale ko jitne nahi diya (cobra and snake joined hands to ensure that mongoose didn’t win)”.

Maurya claimed that the mongoose always wins in fights with the snake. He sought to suggest that he was the mongoose and his rivals were snakes in the recently held Assembly polls in which he lost from the Fazilnagar seat. Maurya’s comment was also apparently aimed at the BJP gaining from the support of the traditional voters of the BSP in some of the Assembly constituencies in the state polls.

Maurya had switched allegiance on the poll eve to join the Samajwadi Party. He was a BJP MLA and a minister in the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet in the state.

In 2016, while being the national general secretary of the BSP had joined the BJP in the run-up to the 2017 Assembly elections in UP.

Speaking to ANI today, Maurya said, “Mongoose is always superior to a snake. It is a different matter that both the snake and the cobra together did not let the mongoose win.”

“The issues because of which I had left the BJP are still relevant today. I wasn’t able to take those issues to the people. I am happy that the support base of the Samajwadi Party has expanded. The SP has emerged as a big force in the state. Our campaign will continue to make the SP a bigger force,” he said.

The BJP has retained power in Uttar Pradesh by winning 255 out of 403 constituencies, securing a 41.29 percent vote share in the state.

This is the first time in 37 years that a party has been able to retain power in Uttar Pradesh after completing a full term. Narayan Dutt Tiwari in 1985 had secured two consecutive terms in the state.

Former CM Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party came a distant second in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh election, securing 111 seats and getting 32.06 percent votes.

The two other major parties – Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Indian National Congress (INC) – were reduced to a single digit. The BSP won one seat and Congress two seats.

Moreover, the vote shares of the BSP and the Congress party stood at 12.88 percent and 2.33 percent, respectively.

In the 2017 Assembly election, the SP had got 47 seats and the BJP had won 312 seats.