By Rahi Gaikwad

Mumbai: The social engineering marvel that the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) created seems to have snagged in Maharashtra. As results of the 2009 Lok Sabha came in, it became evident that the much talked about ‘BSP factor’ had ebbed.

Indeed, among the many surprises in this election was the BSP’s lustreless performance in the State.
Vidarbha is where the BSP was expected to make its big gains. The Dalits were a key vote bank, although the BSP is not strictly a Dalit party. With the Republican Party of India (RPI) practically non-existent, the BSP’s chances seemed brighter.

The Dalit voters, however, seemed wary of the party’s claims of representing their cause, having seen the RPI’s debacle. Ms. Mayawati’s attempts to woo the upper caste voters could have given rise to some amount of distrust in her Dalit agenda. There existed a sense of dissatisfaction over the fielding of Brahmin candidates. Even before polling, a clear preference for the BSP among the Dalits was hard to spot.

Some gains The party did make some serious gains in Nagpur. It doubled its vote share to 15.71 per cent from 7.9 per cent in 2004, polling over one lakh votes and retaining the third place. Days before the results were announced, its Nagpur candidate Manikrao Vaidya was reported to have led a victory procession. However, the city went to the sitting MP Vilas Muttemwar of Congress. The BJP’s Banwarilal Purohit came second.

The ‘BSP factor’ did come into play at a few places, hurting the Congress-NCP as well as the BJP-Sena. In Nagpur for instance, Vaidya, a Teli community leader, helped the Congress win by eroding the BJP’s vote base among the Telis. The BSP fared well in Vidarbha’s Wardha district. It grabbed an impressive 17.11 per cent of the votes (over one lakh) way up from its 8.62 per cent vote share in 2004. This could have hurt the BJP, which had won Wardha in 2004. This time, Datta Meghe of the Congress won by a margin of 95,000 votes.

On the other hand, in Buldhana, the BSP with over 80,000 votes seems to have dented the chances of the NCP’s Dr. Rajendra Shingane. He lost to the Shiv Sena by 28,000 votes.

Similarly, in the new constituency of Yavatmal-Washim, the BSP weaned away over 60,000 votes. And the Congress candidate Haribhau Rathod lost to the Sena’s Bhavana Gawli by almost that many votes.

In a more decisive role, the BSP polled over one lakh votes in Marathwada’s Hingoli, a strong improvement over its 2004 tally of 30,000 votes. It cut deep into the vote base of the sitting MP Suryakanta Patil of the NCP, leading to her loss. The BSP held sway among the tribal voters. In the new tribal constituency of Gadchiroli-Chimur, the party snapped up a sizeable 1.35 lakh votes – 16.21 per cent.

It is in Vidarbha that the BSP suffered heavy losses. In Bhandara-Gondia, its vote tally plunged by 7 percentage points. Its candidate Virendra Jaiswal had started a campaign maligning the NCP’s Praful Patel.

To woo the Dalit voters, Jaiswal claimed that Mr. Patel’s father was the caused for Dr. Ambedkar’s defeat in the 1954 by-election.

The Khairlanji massacre and the shoddy handling of the case had led to much resentment towards the NCP among the Dalits. Plus, no RPI candidate was contesting from Bhandara. Despite these favourable factors, the BSP tanked and Mr. Patel won by a huge margin.

In another huge loss, the BSP halved its vote share in Chandrapur from 12.4 per cent in 2004 to 6.4 per cent in 2009.

Barring six seats in Vidarbha and one in Marathwada, the BSP was not in the reckoning anywhere else in the State. Altogether, it took 10 per cent and more votes in six seats in Maharashtra. Trying all formulae, it fielded Brahmins, Dalits, Muslims and NCP rebels, but met with a cold response. Its Brahmin candidates in Pune and Nashik fared poorly, notably due to the presence of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Its Muslim candidates failed to awe as the Muslim vote largely went to the Congress.

Prediction According to the party’s estimate, reported in the media, it was poised to win 15 seats in Maharashtra, which has 48 Lok Sabha seats. Instead, the party lost its deposits in 34 of the 47 seats it contested – Akola is the only seat it did not contest.

Overall, the BSP’s vote share in the State in 2009 is 4.83 per cent. The party polled close to 18 lakh of the over three-and-a-half crore votes. This is only slight better than its 2004 vote share of 3.05 per cent – up to 10.5 lakh votes. In the 1999 Lok Sabha, its share was 0.32 per cent. However, a decade after it set its foot in Maharashtra the ‘Elephant’ has still to sound its trumpet.