New Delhi: BSP's ambitions of emerging as
a pan-India party on Thursday suffered a further jolt when it failed
to make any mark in Maharashtra and Haryana assembly polls.
As the poll results were out, BSP supremo Mayawati's
desire of leading a party with a strong base in several states
outside Uttar Pradesh failed to materialise with poor showing
in the two states where it had shown promise earlier.
The results have come as a dampener to the party which
had projected Mayawati as prime ministerial candidate in the
Lok Sabha elections.
BSP, which decided to go alone in Maharashtra, failed
to win any of the 281 seats it had contested out of the total
288 assembly seats there.
On the other hand, its arch rival Samajwadi Party
managed to win four seats in Maharashtra.
The performance of Mulayam Singh Yadav's party stung
BSP more as SP had failed to open its account in that state
during the 2004 assembly elections. BSP at that time too had
failed to win any seat there.
Despite Maharashtra having around 30 per cent Dalit
votes, BSP failed to open its account in the state. Mayawati
had addressed a couple of rallies in the state.
In the last assembly elections, it had managed four
per cent voteshare in Maharashtra.
In contrast to BSP's performance, the Third Front
formed by Left parties, SP, JD(S) and Republican Party of
India (RPI) and smaller Maharashtra based parties like
Shetkari Sangathana and Peasants and Workers Party (PWP)
managed to win nine seats among them.
The Front, known as Republican Left Democratic Front
(RLDF), would be expecting to be included in the government
formation as the Congress-NCP have bagged 143 seats among
them and may require a few more seats to be comfortably
placed in the assembly.
In Haryana, where BSP's vote share in this year's Lok
Sabha elections was 21 per cent, managed to win only one seat,
the same as in the last assembly elections in 2004.
Another factor which worked against Mayawati's party
was a break-up of its pre-poll alliance with Bhajan Lal-led
Haryana Janhit Congress which won six seats.
Mayawati, who was the lone star campaigner for her
party, addressed around eight rallies in the state and put up
candidates in 86 out of the total 90 assembly seats there.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, October 22, 2009, 19:21