BSP draws a blank in LS elections

 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati’s dream of taking over the prime minister’s office was dashed to the ground as her party suffered a complete rout in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, signalling substantial erosion of her Dalit vote bank.

The party, which was fourth largest in the 15th Lok Sabha, will have no represent in the 16th as its strength in the Lower House of Parliament came down to zero from 21 seats, including one from Madhya Pradesh that it secured in the last parliamentary elections.
On Friday, the election results came as a surprise to many, as even the Today’s Chanakya exit polls had given three seats to the BSP in Uttar Pradesh.

Confident of improving its tally in this election, Mayawati had fielded her party candidates from all the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, She had also fielded candidate in many other states, including Gujarat.

The famed social engineering of the BSP chief and her tactical move of fielding as many as 19 Muslim candidates failed to yield any result.

The BSP, which had emerged as the third largest national party in terms of vote percentage in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, drew a blank this election even as it came second in as many as 33 parliamentary seats.

The provisional report of the Election Commission indicated over two per cent decline in the BSP’s vote share in this election when compared with the party’s vote share in 2009 polls, pegged at 6.17 per cent. The party’s vote share remained 4.1 per cent this time.
“The poll results are a clear indication of the fact that there has been a significant erosion of BSP’s core support base, Dalits,” Centre for the Study of Developing Societies Director Sanjay Kumar told Deccan Herald.

The party’s drubbing in the just-concluded parliamentary polls comes within two years of it losing power to Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, where it suffered a humiliating defeat and its strength came down to 80 from 206 seats.