New Delhi: The Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati opted out of the Lok Sabha race on Wednesday. She said that she would rather campaign for her party candidates than contest herself. “I won’t contest polls. I am confident that my party will completely understand my decision. Our coalition (with Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal) is doing well. I can vacate a seat and contest later if I wish,” the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh told reporters in Lucknow.Clarifying her decision, she said that although she could win from any seat, it was more important for her to campaign for the alliance and win more seats than focus her energy on a single seat.When I became UP CM first time in 1995 I was not member of either UP Assembly or Council. Similarly is provision at the Centre where a person have to be a LS/RS member within 6 months of holding office of minister/PM. Don’t disheartened from my decision not to contest LS poll now— Mayawati (@Mayawati) March 20, 2019“I know I can win from any seat. All that I have to do is to file my nomination and my party workers will take care of the rest… I had earlier resigned from Rajya Sabha to keep our movement alive, but keeping in mind the current political situation, I have decided not to contest the Lok Sabha elections,” she said. Her decision not to contest does not come as a surprise as she has been staying away from the Lok Sabha for the last 15 years. She last represented Akbarpur Lok Sabha seat (now Ambedkar Nagar) in 2004.Also read: In Uttar Pradesh, Defections to BJP Have Weakened the Opposition’s AllianceWhile her first priority has always been Uttar Pradesh state politics, she represented her party in the Lok Sabha on four occasions – first in 1989 from Bijnor, and in 1998, 1999, and 2004 from Akbarpur. Her last parliamentary innings was in the Rajya Sabha from 2012 to 2017. She was elected to the upper house after her party, the BSP lost the assembly elections to Samajwadi Party in 2012. The Dalit leader was the state’s chief minister in a BSP majority state government in UP from 2007 to 2012.Her Rajya Sabha tenure came to an abrupt end as nine months before her term was supposed to end, she resigned in protest against the NDA government. She said her voice was being muzzled in Parliament after she was not allowed extra time to finish her speech on rising atrocities against Dalits. Since the party had drawn a nil in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Mayawati’s resignation meant that BSP did not have even a single member in Parliament. The BSP supremo was the sole Rajya Sabha member from the party in the upper house. Since then, her focus has been to consolidate her core support base of Dalits in UP. A complete rout of the party in 2014 also forced her, in a way, to ally with her arch-rival – the Samajwadi Party. Against this backdrop, her decision to stay away from Lok Sabha polls is significant. For this will be the first time she will not be contesting the Lok Sabha polls despite being out of power in Uttar Pradesh assembly.