A day after the political drubbing in Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati openly blamed Muslims for her party’s loss. The BSP managed to win just one seat, and Mayawati blamed social media, the news media and Samajwadi Party (SP) for her party’s loss accusing them of “misleading” the non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) voter that BSP was BJP’s “B team”.
“Muslims had committed a big mistake by voting en masse for Samajwadi Party,” she said addressing the media on the morning after counting day. This has been perhaps the worst electoral result for the BSP which had formed a majority government in Uttar Pradesh in 2007. This time, though the BSP had a vote share of 12.88 percent, it only translated into one seat.
Former Chief Minister Mayawati said, “The casteist media, nasty scheming, constant negative campaigning to mislead Muslims and anti-BJP Hindus have been successful to a large extent. They created a perception that the BSP is a B-team of the BJP and is not fighting against it as vigorously as SP is. The truth is entirely the opposite.”
According to Mayawati the media and social media do not want the backward / repressed classes to have the master key [to suppress/progress] in their hands, and they “stooped as low as possible to play their dirty and disgusting games.” This ‘media campaign’ she alleged “led the Muslim community to vote for SP en masse” and that in turn confused “anti-BJP Hindus” who also did not support BSP on voting day.
“If they had not been misled then this would not have been the result,” she said, warning that “these people will suffer and regret [their decision] after some time.” Here her indication is to Muslims, and Hindus who did not vote for BSP, rather voted for SP. “They forget that only BSP can stop BJP from reuring to power, not SP. The Muslims were with BSP, but their entire vote shifted to SP,” she said.
Mayawati asserted that the BSP’s fight against BJP was not just political but “ideological” and that BJP’s aggressive anti-Muslim election campaign made the Muslim community vote for SP.
“If the Muslim vote had joined with Dalits, like it did in Bengal, the same results of toppling the BJP would have been repeated here,” said Mayawati.
Her speech after the poll loss was to assuage the party workers but may have had an adverse impact with its anti-Muslim tone. There seems to be an attempt to pin the blame as it were, and put the onus on Muslims for the results. However, Muslim candidates have in fact defeated BJP candidates in various constituencies. An example is SP’s Saiyada Khatoon who defeated Raghvendra Pratap Singh, the communal venom spewing BJP MLA, indicating how the electorate did not support hate or discrimination.
The BJP has retained power in Uttar Pradesh by winning 255 out of 403 constituencies, securing a 41.29 percent vote share. This was a drop of 49 seats from the party’s tally in 2017. This is the first time in 37 years that a party has been able to retain power in Uttar Pradesh after completing a full term. The last time this happened was back in the days of Govind Vallabh Pant!
Mayawati also asked party workers to not lose hope and continue with “the struggle to carve out a way in difficult situations throughout their lives”.
“UP election results are opposed to BSP’s expectations. We should not be discouraged by it. Instead, we should learn from it, introspect and carry forward our party movement, and come back to power,” she said, citing the examples of BJP and Congress who had rebuilt their respective parties after poll defeats in the past in Uttar Pradesh. “Even in UP, the BJP wasn’t very strong before 2017,” she said.
The state was ruled by the Samajwadi Party and BSP separately till 2017. Mayawati added that Congress is going through a similar slump, and said, “UP election result is a lesson for us to continue putting in efforts.”
11-03-2022-BSP PRESS NOTE-UP POLL RESULT pic.twitter.com/ed923W8OlC
— Mayawati (@Mayawati) March 11, 2022
In contrast was Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav who said he “was grateful” to the voters of the state for a two-and-a-half fold increase in SP’s seat tally and a one-and-a-half fold surge in their vote share. “We have shown that the BJP’s seat count can be decreased. This decline would continue. More than half of falsehoods have been wiped out, the rest will follow. The struggle in public interest would continue,” he said in his first public comment after the results were declared.
उप्र की जनता को हमारी सीटें ढाई गुनी व मत प्रतिशत डेढ़ गुना बढ़ाने के लिए हार्दिक धन्यवाद!
हमने दिखा दिया है कि भाजपा की सीटों को घटाया जा सकता है। भाजपा का ये घटाव निरंतर जारी रहेगा।आधे से ज़्यादा भ्रम और छलावा दूर हो गया है बाकी कुछ दिनों में हो जाएगा।
जनहित का संघर्ष जीतेगा!
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) March 11, 2022
सपा-गठबंधन के जीते हुए सभी विधायकों को हार्दिक बधाई! सभी नये विधायक जनता की सेवा व सहायता करने की ज़िम्मेदारी शत-प्रतिशत निभाएं!
उस हर एक छात्र, बेरोज़गार युवा, शिक्षक, शिक्षामित्र, महिला, पुरानी पेंशन के समर्थक, किसान, मज़दूर और प्रोफेशनल को धन्यवाद जिसने हममें विश्वास जताया।
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) March 11, 2022
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