With 'Clean toilet first' motto Bharatiya Suraaj Dal dealt a crushing blow in Palamu in this Assembly polls.
The party had fielded three candidates from Palamu and all the 3 fell on their faces. Bhartiya Suraaj Dal chief PK Siddharth, a former additional director general of police, lost his deposit along with two others.
BSD woman candidate Pramita Devi who contested from the reserved Chhaterpur seat got only 1,049 votes, while Rajput Raj Kumar Singh, who was in the poll fray from Vishrampur constituency could manage to get just 926 votes. Siddharth was no better, he got 1,657 votes. Thus the dream of BSD came crushing on them.
Financial crunch, poor campaigning, lack of dedicated workers, colossal absence of booth management etc rendered the BSD irrelevant here so far this poll is concerned.
Sources said the BSD chief even begged people to donate and for this he gave an account number of the SBI branch also.
Sources said the BSD started here on the note of clean toilet first and in Palamu where there still exists feudal mind set washing others toilet for making an entry in BSD politics was sadly rejected.
In order to dispel any more disgust with this bizarre idea Siddharth himself washed a toilet and was profusely photographed for doing this clean job as Siddharth who was the SP Palamu was seen then as a no nonsense SP with a high image of pro poor police officer.
Unbelievable it may sound but this candidate faced Jury here and interestingly the members of the Jury were his hand picked said one of his own men begging anonymity as this insider said all this did not go down well with either the urban voters or with the rural voters.
The BSD was almost a non starter in the rural of the Daltonganj assembly constituency. Siddharth had even visited Baree village and had won hearts there for his simplicity.
Siddharth even dispatched a small contingent of hard core workers to reach Raj Bhavan on foot which initially gave him a good mileage but he and his men failed to consolidate the growing public perception which was then getting tilted towards the BSD. Every one believed that this man would fight corruption but how he did not tell any one and this proved his failing here in this assembly poll.
A civil society activist said the BSD may be out and down at this moment but it may not be written off. The BSD started quite late in Palamu as had this outfit started political workings an year or so ahead of this Vidhan Sabha election in Palamu the results would not have been that much dismal then.
Sources said the BSD wanted to be a party with a difference but ended up in a total fiasco. People here match its vote counts with other non serious candidates.