In UP, BSP reduced to 1 seat, vote share plummets to 12%

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 11

The Mayawati-led BSP could manage to win only one Assembly seat with 12.88 per cent vote share in Uttar Pradesh. She had been an influential player in the state for three decades with over 22 per cent of Dalit vote bank, besides some support of Brahmins and a few other castes.

Vicious campaign

Our supporters were made to fear that jungle raj will return to UP if the SP is elected to power. Muslims and other communities thus voted for BJP. Mayawati, BSP supremo

Mayawati on Friday blamed the “casteist media” for driving away Muslims from her party and said the fear of a “jungle raj” if the Samajwadi Party came to power made its other supporters shift to the BJP. There was an aggressive propaganda showing the BSP as the “B team” of the BJP that drove away Muslims and anti-BJP voters from it, she alleged.

The BSP had won 19 seats in the 2017 UP elections with a vote share of over 21 per cent. Observers are of the view that Mayawati failed to keep her core vote base intact, which gradually drifted towards the two main rivals – the BJP and SP. While a sizeable share went in favour of the BJP, which they think helped them through various welfare schemes, those who were not happy with the Yogi government, sided with the SP.

Several leaders such as Indrajit Saroj, Lalji Verma, Ram Achal Rajbhar and Tribhuvan Dutt, who had helped strengthen the BSP, also left party for the SP. Their exit made BSP voters look for other options in the state. —

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