BSP fails to make a mark in Pune

The BSP members will meet on Saturday in Mumbai to take a stock of the situation. While blaming the third front for its poor performance,the party also believes the Congress-NCP alliance made inroads into its Dalit vote bank.

City Congress president Abhay Chhajed said BSP could not keep blaming others if even after 10 years of presence in the state it could not bag a single seat. “The party has no foothold in the district or the state. It is not faring well even in Uttar Pradesh now and there is no chance that they would do well elsewhere,” he said.

With the state having nearly 30 per cent Dalit votes,it was widely expected that BSP would cut into the Congress votes this time,especially in Pune,where its Lok Sabha candidate D S Kulkarni,polled an impressive 62,981 votes in the April elections.

“We could give a decent performance only in the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions,while in other areas we fared poorly,” said Garud. A BSP leader in Pune said though the party put up many candidates,there was no other leader at the state-level who could claim to be the face of the party.

“We did not do much campaigning like the Cong-NCP and BJP-SS alliance,” he said.

The BSP had hopes of almost doubling its poll percentage to about eight per cent and winning about a dozen seats,of which a couple were to be from Pune district. In Pune,it had got 5.15 per cent votes in the recent Lok Sabha election as against 3.06 per cent from across the state.