Uttar Pradesh bypolls: Lok Sabha show eclipsed, BSP fort crumbles

LUCKNOW: Anticipating a revival in UP after winning 10 Lok Sabha seats, BSP chief Mayawati decided to contest assembly bypolls after 12 years. The results, however, are a far cry from the boost she was expecting. Not only did BSP fail to retain its Jalalpur seat, its candidates lost deposits in six of the 11 seats.
The bypoll drubbing clouds Mayawati's claim of her party not doing well in Lok Sabha elections due to failure of Akhilesh Yadav's SP in ensuring transfer of its votes.Her argument doesn't hold water especially since SP has bagged three seats in this byelections, improving its tally by two.
Also, in the six seats where its candidates lost deposits, BSP fared worse than even Congress, which had won a single seat in UP in the May general elections.
Pushing the party further into an existential crisis, BSP also failed to secure a single seat in the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly polls.
A party member said BSP's low vote share in a majority of seats in all three states was indicative of its major support groups moving away. In UP, minorities and in some cases OBCs appear to have drifted towards SP, he said. BSP's vote share dropped from 22.2% in 2017 assembly elections to 17% in bypoll.
BSP candidate Chhaya Verma, daughter of former minister Lalji Verma, lost a close contest in Jalalpur by mere 790 votes. Jalalpur was vacated by BSP's Ritesh Pandey who won Lok Sabha elections from Ambedkarnagar.
A senior member said the results indicate a complete shift of Muslim votes in SP's favour. "The BJP came third in Jalalpur, making clear that Muslims voted for SP. In fact, even Brahmins voted for SP. Had they voted for BJP, we would have managed to win. Pandey was a Brahmin and Verma is Kurmi. In her case, it appears only Dalits and Kurmis voted for her while other OBCs supported SP," he said.
Among BSP candidates who lost their deposits are MP Satish Mishra's relative Devi Prasad Tiwari who got 4.52% votes in Kanpur's Govindnagar seat and Mishra's close aide Arun Dwivedi who contested from Lucknow Cantonment but secured just 9.64% of the total votes.