The decision to contest 11 assembly bypolls in Uttar Pradesh after over two decades did not augur well for Bahujan Samaj Party as it failed to win even a single seat.
The BSP, which drew a blank in 2014 parliamentary polls, had forged an alliance with the Samajwadi Party in the 2019 general elections for its revival and the move clicked as the party won 10 Lok Sabha seats in UP, more than its ally SP.
However, BSP chief Mayawati, who is eyeing to form her party’s government in UP in 2022, took no time to distance herself from SP, claiming that her party could have done better had it gone alone in the 2019 parliamentary elections.
The BSP boss now seems to have got the brunt of the electorate as her former ally SP wrested Jalalpur assembly seat from the BSP in Mayawati’s citadel, Ambedkarnagar.
With this defeat, Mayawati’s dream of projecting her party as the main opponent of the ruling BJP in the 2022 assembly elections, has suffered a big jolt, as her party failed to open account in the bypolls and in some seats, its candidates even lost their deposits.
After the announcement of the bypoll results in UP, Mayawati has so far remained silent over her party’s poor performance. However, senior BSP leaders feel that the results have served as an alarm as they point to the dwindling vote base of the party.
The party lost the Jalalpur seat which it held and it is a cause for concern for it.
The BSP ranked fourth in Lucknow Cantonment even though it had fielded a Brahmin candidate Arun Dwivedi from there. In Rampur, a Muslim-dominated constituency, BSP’s Zubair Masood Khan came fourth and the same was seen in Zaidpur.
In Manikpur, once a BSP stronghold, party candidate Raj Narain Kol slid to the third position.
The vote share of the BSP also nose-dived in this by-election.