Poor Poll Results Hurt Arch-rivals Mulayam And Mayawati
Poor poll results hurt arch-rivals Mulayam and Mayawati
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Published: 23:20 BST, 9 December 2013 | Updated: 23:20 BST, 9 December 2013
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The Assembly poll results have come as a blow to the political ambitions of two regional satraps and arch-rivals - Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav.
It's no secret that the two leaders harbour prime ministerial ambitions and have been making efforts to expand the base of their respective parties - the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) - outside Uttar Pradesh in a bid to play a larger role in national politics.
But in the latest round of assembly elections, their seat shares as well as vote percentages have shrunk.
Wake-up call: BSP chief Mayawati (left) and SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav (right) both aspire to play a role in national politics.
Mulayam's dream of becoming a leader of the possible Third Front has received a setback.
And despite Mayawati's whirlwind tours in four of the five poll-bound states, the BSP won only eight seats against the 17 it had tallied in 2008.
The party had won two seats in Delhi in 2008, though it had contested on all 70 seats.
It had also bagged six of the seats 199 seats it contested in Rajasthan.
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In Madhya Pradesh, 80-100Aquael the BSP had fielded its candidates on 228 of the 230 seats of which seven emerged victorious, while two of the 90 BSP candidates had won in Chhattisgarh in 2008.
This time, the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party dashed Mayawati's hopes of increasing her tally in Delhi. The BSP scored a zilch as Delhiites rejected her party completely.
Adding to the insult was the poor show in the three other states, where the seats went down almost by half - three in Rajasthan, four in Madhya Pradesh and one in Chhattisgarh.
While Mayawati can still draw some consolation that her party won eight seats and posted a respectable show in about three dozen seats in the four states, Mulayam could not even win a single seat in any of these states.
In 2008, the SP had fielded its candidates on 187 seats in MP, 32 in Chhattisgarh, 64 in Rajasthan and 36 seats in Delhi. But it won only two seats - one each in MP and Rajasthan.
The poll results are a bigger lesson for Mulayam, who did not leave any stone unturned to woo the Muslims and gain their votes.
In Rajasthan, the SP had forged a pre-poll alliance with JD(U), JD(S), CPI and CPI(M). Although Mulayam's son and UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had done extensive campaigning in Rajasthan, the party finished runner up in only one seat.
It failed to open its account in MP where it had poll alliance with the CPI(M), CPI and the Rashtriya Samanta Dal.
The poor performance a few months before the general elections would force both Mayawati and Mulayam to return to the boardroom for introspection and redrawing strategy.
MP to have only one Muslim MLA
The newly-elected MLA in Madhya Pradesh will have only one Muslim legislator. Areef Aqueel of the Congress defeated the BJP's Arif Baig in Bhopal North.
The Muslim population in the state is about 50 lakh, which is 7 per cent. Out of the 230 constituencies, eight are minority dominated. But the poor representation of the community in the Assembly continues to be a worrying trend.
The Congress had fielded only five Muslim candidates this time while the BJP had given a ticket to a Muslim after a gap of 22 years.
Of the five Congress candidates four were fresh faces.
Yusuf Kadpa contested from the Jaora seat, Mujeeb Khan from Rewa, Arif Masood from the Bhopal (Central) seat and Firoz Ahmed from the Mudwara seat. But the gamble didn't pay off.
Aqueel, however, won the Bhopal North seat for the fifth time.
Shivraj's ministers bite the dust
The only jarring note in Shivraj Singh Chouhan's triumphant run was that 10 of his ministers lost the polls.
Medical education minister Anoop Mishra, who is the nephew of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, changed his seat to Bhitarwar at the last moment to beat anti-incumbency sentiments in Gwalior (East), but lost to Lakhan Singh Yadav of the Congress.
Agriculture minister Ramkrishna Kusumaria, too, migrated from Pathriya to Rajnagar, but lost to Congress candidate Vikram Singh Nati Raja.
The other losers were Laxmikant Sharma (Sironj), B P Singh (Pawai), Jagannath Singh (Chitrangi), K S Verma (Icchawar), Harishankar Khatik (Jatara), Kanhaiyalal Agrawal (Bamori), Ajay Vishnoi (Patan) and D S Lodhi (Jabera).