Bahujan Samaj's finest hour

BSP wins majority in UP Assembly polls, ends 14 years of coalition politics in the state.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) mammoth lumbered its way to an astonishing victory, crossing the halfway mark in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly, proving even its well-wishers wrong.

Party chief Mayawati is all set to assume office for a fourth time after recording a convincing BSP victory in all the regions in UP "" Rohilkhand, Poorvanchal, Western UP, Avadh and Bundelkhand.

A dejected Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party and former chief minister, resigned in the afternoon, putting the blame for his defeat on the Election Commission. 

UP ASSEMBLY ELECTION 2007
Party	Exit polls				Actual results +leads
	NDTV IMRB	STAR NEWS	CNN-IBN & Ind Exp	INDIA TV & C-Voter
BSP	117-127	137	152-168	124-140	206
SP +	113-123	96	99-111	106-122	97
BJP +	108-118	108	80-90	92-108	51
CONG+	35-45	27	25-33	22-38	22
OTHERS		21-27			26

It was the BJP's performance that was the most disappointing. A party whose president hails from UP, was unable to touch the three-figure tally and ended up third. The party was defeated even in its strongholds like Ayodhya and Haidergarh, which was Rajnath's constituency.

Regionally, the BSP swept Poorvanchal that sends 104 seats to the Assembly, winning around 50 seats there, and Western UP where out of the 67 seats, it won as many as 29.

In both regions, the BJP was speculated as having a big presence. Having lost in these two, there wasn't much for the BJP to look forward to. Its ally Apna Dal did not chalk up a single seat.

Several candidates who had criminal records won. These include DP Yadav from Sahswan and Raja Bhaiyya. However, Mukhtar Ansari, who contested the Mau seat from jail, lost.

Although complete vote share percentages have not been compiled yet, it appears that Mayawati's strategy to broadbase the caste alliance by giving the party nominations to a large number of Brahmins and some Thakurs worked.

In the 2002 Assembly elections, BSP got 23.06 per cent of votes, and won 98 seats. In the Lok Sabha elections in 2004, the BSP garnered 24.67 per cent votes, and won 19 seats. In the 1992 Lok Sabha elections, the party got 22.08 per cent votes, and won 14 seats. In the 1996 Assembly elections, it got 19.64 per cent of votes, and won 67 seats.

In other words, during the last four elections, BSP's vote share in UP hovered around 21 per cent, which is the Dalit vote base in UP. With the current tally crossing 200 seats, it is clear that other castes helped the BSP.

On Mayawati's directions, the Dalits voted in large numbers for Brahmins in the BSP, which enabled her to engineer a huge swing in the BSP's favour.

The Samajwadi Party and its allies ended up with a tally of 97 seats. Mulayam's brother, former PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, who is widely credited with the downfall of the party, however, managed a 35,000 margin victory.

Former ally and friend Beni Prasad Verma who claimed he was driven out of the party got no seats in the election.

The tally of Congress and allies stayed at 22 seats. Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli and Rahul Gandhi's Amethi returned Congress candidates.

Staggered elections took place in Uttar Pradesh from April 7 to May 8, and 50 million voters exercised their franchise in complete peace. The polling was a virtually uniform 46 per cent barring one phase when it went up to 56 per cent, indicating that given a chance to cast their vote, Dalit voters could change the face of politics.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) were wiped out, as well as the Jan Morcha of former prime minister V P Singh and former actor Raj Babbar. Babbar, who quit the Samajwadi Party after differences with Mulayam over Amar Singh, did not win seats though they did harm the SP.

Mayawati has vowed to send Mualayam and Amar Singh to jail on charges of corruption and criminality if she forms a government. It remains to be seen if she will stick to her word.

Meanwhile, Mayawati thanked profusely the upper castes for giving her a majority for the first time in 14 years.

At her first Press conference after most of the results of the UP Assembly had come in, she said, "By voting for the BSP, the upper castes have shown that they are not just ruled by their caste identity but want genuine democracy in UP," she said. She acknowledged that through social engineering, she had managed to steer her party towards the halfway mark.