Mayawati's BSP bites dust in UP

Party slumps from 5th largest party in LS to zero tally

The Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati’s dream to take on the prime minister’s post remained distant as her party suffered a rout in the Lok Sabha elections, signalling substantial erosion of her Dalit base in Uttar Pradesh.

The BSP’s tally dramatically fell to zero from 21 Lok Sabha seats it notched up in the 2009 parliamentary polls—20 from Uttar Pradesh and one from Madhya Pradesh—when the results of the polls were declared on Friday.

The only glimmer of hope was Sitapur seat where party’s Kaisar Jahan was initially leading.

As counting progressed, she too lost out to BJP’s Rajesh Verma.

The party’s drubbing in the elections comes within two years of it losing power to Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh.

Famed social engineering of Mayawati and her tactical move of fielding as many as 19 Muslim candidates in the 16th Lok Sabha polls apparently failed to yield any result.

The BSP, which was the fourth largest party in the 15th Lok Sabha, was reduced to a blank in this election, even as it came second in as many as 33 parliamentary seats.

The party had fielded its candidates from all the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. It also fielded candidates in many other states, including Gujarat.

The provisional report of the Election Commission indicated about two per cent decline in the BSP’s vote share in this election over that of last parliamentary polls.

The party’s vote share of 6.17 per cent in 2009 LS polls got pegged at 4.4 per cent in the current elections.

“The poll results are clear indication of the fact that there has been a significant erosion of BSP’s core support base, Dalits,” Director at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies Sanjay Kumar told Deccan Herald.