Mum in day,Maya shoots in dark: BJP,Cong plotted

Later,even gloomy BSP workers slowly walked away. As a guard posted at the BSP office gate put it,“No workers visited the office during the day. Everything is quiet here.”

At the CM residence at Kalidas Marg,the only people gathered there were media personnel and some guards looking bored. In fact,at the nearby office of the Rajya Salhakar Parishad,a big lock hung at the gate.

It was only in the evening that Mayawati showed up at a hurriedly called press conference at her residence only to blame her party’s performance on the rivals who she said had plotted against her. “To stop the BSP from claiming its stakes at the Centre,all parties including the BJP,Congress and the SP joined hands in the state. Wherever the BSP candidate was in a winning position,these three parties fielded their strongest candidate to ensure our defeat,” she said.

Accusing the SP and the Congress of misguiding the Muslim voters,Mayawati said,“They told the Muslim community that the BSP had formed the government with the help of the BJP three times in the past and this time too,the BSP will go with the BJP at the Centre. This caught the disillusioned Muslim voter between the SP and the Congress.”

“Muslims voted for the BSP only in places where either there was a Muslim candidate or he had a strong base at the local level,” she said. The BSP has bagged 20 Lok Sabha seats,one more than its 2004 tally of 19.

Reluctant to reveal her party’s future strategy,Mayawati said she would hold a meeting of MPs and other office-bearers.

The CM,visibly jittery,left in huff following a volley of questions from reporters.