Several Brahmin and Muslim names in list, BSP may cut into INDIA votes

THE CONGRESS and Samajwadi Party’s (SP) accusations against the BSP of being the BJP’S “Bteam” are set to get stronger with the party's four lists covering 46 seats, out of the total 80, indicating that Mayawati may cut into the traditional vote bases of the two parties.

Of the names declared by the BSP so far, 11 are Muslims, mainly from minority-dominated seats of western UP such as Saharanpur, Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Amroha, Aonla, Pilibhit (many of which vote in the first phase on April 19), along with the Central UP seats of Kannauj and Lucknow.

This is much more than the number of Muslims fielded by the SP in the 50 seats for which it has announced names.

Apart from Muslims, the BSP also given the ticket to a significant number of Brahmins such as Rakesh Dwivedi from Akbarpur, Manish Tripathi from Mirzapur, and Ashok Kumar Pandey from Unnao. The remaining are either Dalits or backward leaders of the party.

BSP national coordinator and Mayawati's heir apparent Akash Anand recently began the party's Lok Sabha campaign with an attack on the BJP – the party had been avoiding it recently. Mayawati has also lined up a series of rallies in western UP seats with dominant Muslim populations, including Moradabad, Pilibhit, Nagina and Bijnor.

Among the 11 Muslims fielded by the party, one is Jawed Simnani from Gorakhpur. The BSP has in the recent past never fielded a Muslim from here, propping up either a Bramhin or a Nishad candidate from the traditional BJP seat. In 2019, it left the constituency for its then ally SP. Simnani is expected to cut into the SP'S Muslim votes, which it hoped to get apart from the backing of OBCS and Nishads.

In Saharanpur, where the BSP has replaced its sitting MP Hazi

Fazrul Rehman with Majid Ali, Mayawati hit out at the Congress asking why it had fielded Imran Masood despite knowing he won't win. She said, the BSP didn't have just Muslim but also a Dalit base. “The Congress does not have a second vote base,” appealing to Muslims to not divide their votes.

In Muzaffarnagar, Mayawati talked about the 2013 riots and pointed out that these had happened under the SP'S watch, while there was peace during her four CM terms. The BSP candidate here is Dara Singh Prajapati, who belongs to a Most Backward Class. The BJP'S Sanjeev Balyan, a Jat, is facing Rajput anger in the seat. The SP has also fielded a Jat here, Harendra Mallik, and was calculating on getting other backward community votes.

Further, the BSP has fielded Imran Bin Jafar from Kannauj (an SP stronghold) against sitting MP and BJP candidate Subrat Pathak, while Sarvar Mallik has been fielded against Union Minister and Sitting MP Rajnath Singh in the state Capital Lucknow.

The BSP has been on the decline in UP. In the 2022 Assembly polls, it won just one seat and saw its vote share plunge.

In 2019, when the BSP fought the last Lok Sabha elections in alliancewiththesp,itwon10seats, with a vote share of more than 19%. Most of those sitting MPS have now jumped ship.

Mayawati has had to face accusations of her party being BJP’S ‘B team’