New Delhi: Seeking to give the BJP and Congress a run for their money, BSP Supremo Mayawati plans to campaign for eight days in poll-bound Gujarat next month as part of her plans to emerge as the "Third alternative" in the state.

While the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has not firmed up her campaign plans, she has taken the challenge in the Narendra Modi-run state seriously, her close associate and senior BSP leader Gandhi Azad said.

Azad, who is in charge of the party affairs in Gujarat, told reporters that Mayawati wants to fan out in the state, known for its bipolar polity so far, by campaigning four days each in the two-phase elections.

BSP, he claimed, was the only party in the state which planned to contest all the 182 seats and since "we have to capture Delhi, we cannot take the challenge in Gandhi Nagar lightly".

Frowning upon suggestions that the BSP's role was merely to cut into the votes of the Congress and the BJP and it posed no serious challenge, he said in Uttar Pradesh too the BSP was initially taken as a force of no consequence, but is now in power on its own.

"In UP, we have proved that we are not in the business of mere cutting votes, but roots (of other political parties)," Azad, a member of the Rajya Sabha, said.

Source : PTI