BSP chief Mayawati
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has suffered decimation across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand.
Party chief Mayawati, who earlier said the BSP would get a full majority in Uttar Pradesh, is leading in just 1 seat in UP, and not a single one in Punjab and Uttarakhand, according to Election Commission data as of 09:15 pm.
The party’s performance in UP, where it has a strong foothold in western and eastern parts, is a long way off.
What’s surprising is the fact that BSP, which had a vote share of 22.04% in 2017, seems to have plummeted to 12% in 2022
Major Setback
Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party had reached a point of terminal decline were not merely influenced by her incessant poor electoral performances starting from the 2009.
Lok Sabha polls that crushed her prime ministerial dreams, then losing the throne in Lucknow to Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party in 2012, followed by the embarrassment of not winning even a single seat in the 2014.
Lok Sabha polls and barely 5 per cent of the seats in the 2017 Assembly elections.
What was more important than these successive bruising defeats was the fundamental change in the socio-political landscape of the state.
Instead of reaping the advantage of her core Jatava voter base swelling considerably with the support of other social segments, Behenji like before now finds that even her vote bank is fast dwindling.
Furthermore, Unlike UP, where the BSP has formed the government and been a key player in the past, in Punjab, it has always been a non-entity, last winning a seat in the state legislature only in 1992.
The reason behind this, explained Prof. M. Rajivlochan from Panjab University, was that Punjab has its own Dalit movement and because caste division does not exist in the state.
While in Uttarakhand, Brahmins are in majority and therefore the political rule was based on their politics, which earlier the Congress had captured and now is in the BJP’s domain.
