The huge turnout in two back-to-back rallies of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) head Mayawati at Udham Singh Nagar and laksar in Haridwar district has rejuvenated the morale of party cadre which was hitherto subdued due to large scale defections from the party in recent past. The party considers Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts as key for its electoral fortunes in Uttarakhand. Both these districts have a sizeable population of Dalit and Muslims, the traditional vote banks of the party in the state. Haridwar district with a population of about seven lakh Dalit and Muslim votes holds the key for party’s performance in state.
The party was able to win only three assembly seats (Bhagwanpur, Jhabreda and Manglaur) in the assembly elections of 2012 from Haridwar district. A poor performance considering the fact that the party won five and six seats in the assembly elections of 2002 and 2007 respectively. What is important however is that the party was able to garner 29 percent of total polled votes from 11 constituencies of Haridwar district.
Udham Singh Nagar district is the only other district in state apart from Haridwar where BSP is potent electoral force. It won Sitarganj and Pantnagar- Gadarpur seats in the elections of 2002 and 2007.
But in the elections of 2012 the party drew a blank from the district. The party leaders are hoping that the party would be able to improve upon the performance as the party candidates stood second in two (Jaspur and Sitarganj) and came third in six assembly segments with a vote share of more than 21 percent.
The party has fielded Anju Mittal from Haridwar, Prashant Rai from BHEl Ranipur, Mulki Raj from Jwalapur-SC, Ramkumar Rana from Bhagwanpur-SC, Bhagmal from Jhabreda-SC, Haji Rao Sajid from Piran Kaliyar, Dr Ram Subhag Singh Saini from Roorkee, Mufti Riyasat from Khanpur, Sarvat Karim Ansari from Manglaur, Subhash Chaudhary from laksar, Mukaram Ali from Haridwar-Rural.
From Udham Singh Nagar the party candidates are Mohammad Umar (Jaspur), Mohammad Ashraf (Kashipur), Ramavtar (Bajpur), Jarnail Singh Kali (Gadarpur), Jaswant Singh (Rudrapur), Rajesh Pratap Singh (Kichha), Navdesh Pal Singh (Sitarganj)
Sheesram Rana (Nanakmatta) and Ramesh Singh Rana (Khatima).
The Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts send twenty MlAs to the state assembly and the BSP is going all out to woo the voters on its Dalit- Muslim combine but the observers feel that the party would affect the electoral prospects of Congress candidates more in most of the constituencies as the party shares same vote bank with that of Congress. In last elections BJP was able to win five and six assembly seats in Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts.