Lok Sabha Elections 2024 | BSP draws a blank in Uttar Pradesh

BSP leaders here attributed the party’s dismal performance to the 'poor choice of candidates' and the sudden ouster’ of Akash Anand from the post of coordinator by BSP supremo Mayawati.

Lucknow: Nurturing dreams to emerge as a ‘king maker’ through its carefully crafted ‘’social engineering’’, the BSP came a cropper in Uttar Pradesh and failed to open its account in the Lok Sabha polls.

The BSP, which had contested all the 80 LS seats in the seats, finished third on all the seats indicative of its dismal performance in the state. BSP had won 10 seats in the state in the 2019 LS polls. It had contested the 2019 LS polls in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP).

BSP leaders here attributed the party’s dismal performance to the ‘’poor choice of candidates’’ and ‘’sudden ouster’’ of Akash Anand from the post of coordinator by BSP supremo Mayawati on the eve of the polls.

The leaders also said that the decision not to join the SP-Congress alliance in the state was a ‘mistake’. ‘’We would have swept the state had we contested as part of the I.N.D.I.A. alliance,’’ said a BSP leader here.

Mayawati had on more than one occasion rejected the offer by the Congress to join the alliance and decided to go it alone.

The leader said that Mayawati decision to focus on stopping the BJP juggernaut in the state as well as resurgence of arch rival SP in selection of candidates proved electorally fatal for the party.

Also her decision to deny tickets to many of the sitting MPs cost the party dear as they switched loyalty and joined the rival parties.

BSP’s stock has been declining in the state with every election. In 2012, though the BSP had lost the polls to SP but it remained the main opposition party with 80 seats and 25 per cent vote share. Five years later, the BSP's tally of seats declined sharply to 19 and its vote share came down to 21 per cent.

In the 2022 assembly polls again Mayawati tried her tested social engineering formula and gave tickets to many brahmin candidates but her party was wiped out in the polls and could win only one seat. Its vote share also declined sharply to 12 per cent.

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