BSP at its nadir as Dalits desert Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh

Nurturing hopes to come back to power in Uttar Pradesh with the help of its core vote bank alongside brahmins and Muslims, BSP supremo Mayawati found herself reduced to a fringe player with her party managing to win only one seat in the 403 member assembly in the state in the UP polls.

BSP, which had won 19 seats in the 2017 assembly polls, also saw its vote percentage decline sharply from around 21 per cent in the previous polls to 12 per cent in this election, indicating a massive erosion in its support base in the state.

Political analysts say that a section of the 'Jatavs' may have supported the BJP in the polls which reflected in the increased vote percentage of the BJP.

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They had predicted even before the polls that the BSP would not be able to better its previous performance and Mayawati's long absence from the electoral scene also lent credence to the speculations that she had admitted her defeat even before the polls.

The political fortunes of the BSP had started declining after almost all her party's legislature group members deserted her and even her once closest associates parted ways in the past few months.

Mayawati, who, riding her social engineering formula that brought the 'Brahmins-Dalits-Muslims' together, had managed to win 206 seats in a House of 403 in 2007 assembly polls in the state and formed the government, saw her electoral fortunes nose diving in subsequent assembly elections.

While the BSP won 80 seats in 2012 assembly polls, its tally declined sharply to 19 in 2017 assembly elections. What compounded the woes of the party was that as many as 15 of its MLAs either shifted allegiance or were expelled on charges of anti-party activities.

BSP's vote share also witnessed a gradual decline over the past few years. BSP had secured a little over 30 per cent votes in 2007 when it had formed the government in the state. It went down to less than 26 per cent in 2012 and further declined to around 22 per cent in 2017.

Senior leaders like Ram Achal Rajbhar, former UP BSP president, and Lalji Verma, a once close confidante of Mayawati, joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) along with half a dozen other BSP legislators.

The results also put a question mark on whether she continues to be an undisputed leader of the 'Jatav' (SC) community, which formed around 10 per cent of the total electorate in the state, as her party failed to win even a single reserved seat in these polls.

Mayawati had gone solo in the polls and had put up a large number of brahmin and Muslim candidates in the hope of getting the support of these communities. However, the results revealed that her strategy did not succeed.

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