Maya draws blank, gives Cong the blues

A part of the credit for Moditva onslaught against the Congress must go to Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati’s pan-Indian ambitions.

A part of the credit for Moditva onslaught against the Congress must go to Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati’s pan-Indian ambitions. For, in as many as 23 seats, BSP candidates eating into the traditional Dalit vote share of Congress candidates proved crucial—either in terms of final outcome or victory margins— favouring the saffron party.

In 10 seats, which could have easily gone to the Congress, the BSP candidates’ vote share ensured that the BJP candidates had the last laugh. In rest of the 13 seats, where again the Congress and its ally NCP were well-placed, the BSP cutting into their votes ensured that the victory margins of their candidates were considerably dented. In fact, in about 50 closely-contested constituencies, where the winning margin was less than 5,000 votes, the BSP candidates played spoilsport for the Congress in as many as 18.

For example, take the case of two neighbouring constituencies of Deodar and Kankrej. From the first, BSP candidate Manshinhji Pratapshinhji Vaghela managed to garner about 22 per cent of the votes while the Congress candidate managed just 19 per cent and came second behind BJP candidate. In Kankrej, its candidate not only spoilt the chances of Congress candidate, who lost by less than 1,000 votes, but also garnered 26 per cent of the votes, coming third behind BJP and Congress candidates. What should be worrying for the Congress is that the BSP had contested both these seats for the first time.

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Though the BSP drew a blank, what is significant is that the party fielded 166 candidates this time. It had fielded only 34 candidates in the 2002 Assembly election in the state.

And while going for an all-out contest in the state, the BSP did not leave it to individual candidates but deployed its senior Rajya Sabha member Gandhi Azad to manage party’s electoral strategy. Mayawati herself addressed eight public rallies as part of her campaign in Gujarat.

Post-election, while it is time for the Congress to introspect about what went wrong in Gujarat, it also has to take into account the “indirect” threat from the BSP. This is all the more important since Mayawati is taking the Gujarat wipe-out in her stride as she gears up to play her “social-engineering” card far and wide. After touring various states, including J-K, Punjab, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, in the recent past, she on Sunday began her south India campaign in Bangalore. She is supposed to address rallies in Chennai and Thiruvanthapuram too.