JOIN USMayawati’s dream of repeating her social engineering formula was shatterd to smithereens by the Modi juggernaut, a decade after it yielded her victory in Uttar Pradesh.
Hoping to repeat her success, the bSP supremo cobbled together the Brahmin-Dalit-Muslim coalition that succeeded in 2007. She fielded 102 Muslim candidates to significantly lure the 19 per cent votes of the community away from the SP-Congress combine, while also fielding 50 Brahmins and a large number of dalits.
But the social experiment favoured by the voters a decade before simply failed to produce the magic in 2017, as the Modi wave swept Uttar Pradesh and left Mayawati with 19 seats.
The result has left Mayawati politically irrelevant for the first time in two-and-a-half decades. Such was the BJP’s impact that it won nearly all the reserved constituencies, while also driving the BSP out of its strongholds in Eastern UP.
The non-Jatav dalits left her in astounding numbers and put their faith in BJP’s promise of development, as the BSP was routed from its traditional strongholds in Rohilkhand and Avadh regions. Analysts, however, point to large scale desertion of non-Jatav, non-Yadav OBCs and Brahmin leaders from BSP as an important reason for the party’s crushing defeat.
Swami Prasad Maurya, the BSP’s legislative party leader, and RK Chaudhary, a non-Jatav, left the party to join the BJP in the run-up to the polls, dealing severe blows to Mayawati’s ambitions. Brijesh Pathak, Mayawati’s close aid and a prominent Brahmin face in BSP, also left the party barely a few months before the polls and has now won from Lucknow Central constituency as a BJP candidate.
Another Brahmin leader Rajesh Tripathi also left the party just days before the polls, as also 24 BSP legislators after the announcement of the Assembly polls. Many of the legislators managed to hold on to their seats in 2012, when Akhilesh Yadav lead SP to a massive victory.
Election commission says took enough safeguards
Refuting allegations by BSP supremo Mayawati that EVMs were tampered with to facilitate a BJP victory, the Election Commission has said it took safeguards to ensure error-free functioning of the EVMs, reports DHNS from New Delhi. Writing to BSP General Secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, the EC said no one has demonstrated that the EVMs are tampered with or manipulated, despite it offering opportunities more than once to those claiming that the EVMs can be tampered with.