12.8% vote share: BSP’s worst show since 1993

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Even at its worst, party has never got less than 19% votes in the state. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when not a single candidate of the party could win in the state, BSP had a vote share of 19.77%. In the 2017 Assembly polls, when it won just 19 seats, it had a vote share of 22.23%. It continued to remain in that zone when it tied up with the SP and contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls winning 10 seats.

Interestingly, in the current Assembly election results, it is difficult to miss the fact that the party’s vote share is close to exactly what the share of Jatav votes in UP are said to be. Dalits make for 21% of all votes in UP and Jatavs (the Dalit sub-caste that Mayawati belongs to) alone account for 13%.

Sanjay Kumar from Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) says one should not conclude that just because the voteshares match, only Jatavs have voted for the BSP. He, however, says it is clear other castes and sub-castes have deserted the party.

“We used to think that 2014 was its worst when it could not win a single seat. But now we see a new worst being created. It has gotten reduced to a party of only Jatavs now. It has failed to retain the support of non-Jatav Dalits, who were part of her support base. There is no point of discussing any other caste group, when the party has got only over 12% votes,” Kumar said.

According to Kumar, most crucially, this could be the first election when even Muslims–a key component of the Bahujan political idea propounded by BSP founder Kanshiram–have completely deserted Mayawati.

“BSP was never the first choice of the minorities. But the party has always got 20-23% Muslim votes. In these polls, however, Muslim support for the BSP is even less than what BJP has got from the community. As per survey estimates, BSP is getting 3-4% Muslim votes, while BJP has attracted 7-8% of the community votes. Since this was a bipolar contest and Muslims did not see Mayawati as a challenger, they did not want to waste their votes,” Kumar said.

While BSP spokesperson declined to comment on the poll debacle, a party leader said, “We continue to hold on to our core support base. Because of a polarized atmosphere, some votes have shifted away from us. Perhaps, we could not canvass well enough to convince the voters we were credible challengers to the BJP.”

While BSP was never big on rallies and roadshows, depending more on door-to-door campaigns and community meetings for canvassing, Mayawati’s visibility in these elections was unusually low. While Yogi Adityanath held 203 rallies and roadshows in the run up to the polls, Priyanka Gandhi 209 and Akhilesh Yadav over 130, Mayawati held just 18 rallies.