Lucknow,June 2: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s words have proved prophetic.Atย some of the rallies in the last leg of general elections in Uttar Pradesh, he used to say that these “mahamilawati log”( read alliance partners) will separate.Wait for a few days till May 23 (the result day”.He had guessed it right.
BSP chief Mayawati has given enough hints of going separately.At a meeting in Delhi she is reported to have asked her workers to be ready to fight alone and not “depend on gathbandhan”.
She has also asked them to be ready to fight eleven Assembly by-elections to be held a couple of months later.Some are to be held because of victory achieved by ministers in the state cabinet including Mahendra Nath Pandey who has been appointed a minister at the Centre.
Mayawati is “unhappy” because her workers seem to have voted for the alliance candidates but SP (alliance partner) members have not reciprocated.The result was that in some constituencies which had large Yadav(main SP support-base) presence the BSP candidates lost.
Data support her claim.The vote percentage of the BSP has remained almost the same.The party has secured 19 .26 per cent votes this year in general elections.The numbers were almost the same in previous elections.
With alliance,with the SP which claims to be a party of backward, it should have gone up considerably.But it did not happen.To her it means that Yadavs have not voted for her party in large numbers.
Whatever may be the case,this is true that she has increased her seat share though not the vote -share.From zero in 2014 she bagged ten seats in 2019.On the other hand,though there is increase in vote share in case of SP,there is no increase in seat share.The SP has bagged the same number of seats( Five).
The alliance was opposed by SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav because of his bitter past experience.The BSP which had allied with it in 1995 had pulled the rug from under his feet later,leading to fall of the SP government.
But party president Akhilesh Yadav did not listen to him and went ahead to join hands with her.
His advice now: broad-base the party and do not depend on a few backward castes.It was given on Monday (today) after Mayawati’s statement was communicated to him.
Perhaps, Akhilesh had also seen it coming.Therefore, he has already drawn plans to revamp the party.All this must be music to the BJP.
