BackUP election results 2017: Is it end of the road for Mayawati?
The loss in the assembly election puts Mayawati out of power for 10 years, thus raising questions about her political future
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New Delhi: Out of power for the last five years, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) continued its dismal run in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election.
Election results on Saturday showed that the BSP won 19 seats in Uttar Pradesh, as compared to the 325 seats of Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies and 54 seats of the Samajwadi Party and Congress alliance.
After the loss on Saturday, Mayawati alleged that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) were tampered with in such a way that whichever button was pressed, the vote went to BJP.
Responding to Mayawati’s allegations, the Election Commission rejected her claims saying that the arguments made were “not legally tenable." The EC in a communication sent to Satish Chandra Mishra, national general secretary of the BSP, reasoned out that EVMs are being used since 2000 in every election and that it has “full confidence" in it.
After losing power in the 2012 state election, Mayawati was unable to revive the prospects of her party in the 2014 Lok Sabha election where the BSP could not win a single seat in the state.
The loss in the assembly election puts the three-time chief minister out of power for 10 years, thus raising questions about her political future. It could also create divisions in her loyal vote base—Dalits—who constitute 20.7% of the state’s population as per the 2011 Census.
Another problem for Mayawati is that the BSP will not have a leader of opposition in the Uttar Pradesh assembly, further marginalizing the party in the state.
Eyeing a Dalit-Muslim-Upper caste combine to come back to power—the same combination had voted BSP’s first majority government to power in 2007—Mayawati had fielded 99 Muslim candidates (the highest ever by BSP in the state) out of the 403 candidates. She mounted a determined campaign against both her rivals- the Samajwadi Party—Congress combine and the Bharatiya Janata Party—thus emerging as a serious challenger in what was expected to be a tight three-cornered contest.
With the Dalit vote intact, the bigger challenge for BSP was to consolidate the non-Jatav Dalit vote and the non-Yadav Other Backward Class (OBC) vote-both of which had drifted from the BSP towards the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
While she targeted SP over the deteriorating law and order in the state and instability in the party due to the Yadav family feud, Mayawati called out Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP for the decision to demonetize high value currency notes.
Mayawati had the beginner’s advantage as BSP started its campaign in August—while the SP was embroiled in a power struggle—and she raised the issue of atrocities against Dalits and Muslims at her rallies, exploiting a series of missteps by the BJP to boost her campaign.
Calling the BJP government “anti-Dalit" she raised the issues of atrocities on Dalits by cow vigilantes and ‘love jihad’ in her rallies.
The BSP supremo had also openly cautioned Muslims not to “waste" their votes on the SP-Congress alliance-formed to consolidate the minority vote- and support the BSP instead.
Two high-profile exits early in the election—Swami Prasad Maurya, BSP’s leader of opposition in the state assembly and a popular other backward caste (OBC) face and Brajesh Pathak, former Rajya Sabha member and a prominent Brahmin face of the party—slowed the pace of BSP’s political mobilisation as both the leaders joined the BJP.
PTI contributed to this story.
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