Is Mayawati's poll calculation on Samajwadi Party's Yadav vote bank correct? Know here

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Tuesday announced that her party will be contesting the upcoming Assembly bypolls to 11 seats in Uttar Pradesh alone saying that the BSP has not benefitted with the base vote of the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP).

"If Yadavs had voted in full measure for the alliance, senior SP leaders like Dimple Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav, and Akshay Yadav would not have lost from Yadav-dominated seats. This is a matter for concern for the Samajwadi Party," she said in Lucknow. 

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 62 of 80 seats and its ally Apana Dal (S) contributed 2 more seats in the state while the 'Mahagathbandhan' bagged just 15 with the BSP winning 10 and the SP five. The Congress got only one seat of Rae Bareli. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BSP could not open its account in the state.

The former chief minister said political compulsions cannot be ignored completely and therefore the BSP will go solo in the upcoming bypolls in the state. "The bypolls can be announced any moment now. Under current conditions, in Uttar Pradesh, we have decided to fight the bypolls - which will happen on some seats - all alone," Mayawati said.

So, the one question that everyone is asking whether Mayawati’s assessment that Yadav voters have not voted for BSP is right? The numbers state it clearly. 

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In the 2014 General Elections, the Mayawati-led BSP received 1,59,14,194 votes with a decent vote share of 19.8 per cent but failed to win a single seat in the state. On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party was able to garner 1,79,88,967 votes in the state with a vote share of 22.3 per cent. The party won only 5 seats. Similarly, the Congress was able to get 60,61,267 votes with a vote share of just 7.5 per cent.

The BJP, which swept the last Lok Sabha polls by winning 71 seats, received 3,43,18,854 votes with a vote share of 42.6 per cent. It's alliance partner Apna Dal (S) secured close to 1 per cent votes in the state and won 2 seats.

In 2019, the BSP got 1,66,58,917 votes with a vote share of 19.3 per cent. So, the BSP got 7,44,723 more votes this time than what it got in the last Lok Sabha Elections, although the vote percentage was dropped by almost 0.50 per cent. Going by this data, it is crystal clear that the BSP's vote bank remained almost intact. This is probably why Mayawati has decided to go solo in the 11 Assembly bypolls in a politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. The bypolls are necessitated after the MLAs won the Lok Sabha polls. While nine BJP MLAs (including 1 of alliance partner Apna Dal) emerged victorious in the Lok Sabha polls, one each from the BSP and the SP was elected to the Lower House of the Parliament.  

ALSO READ: 2019 Vs 2014: How much votes BJP and Congress got? Here is the comparison

The eleven seats where bypolls are scheduled are - Gangoh (Pradeep Kumar-BJP), Rampur (Azam Khan-SP), Lucknow Cantt (Rita Bahuguna Joshi-BJP), Govindnagar (Satyadev Pachauri-BJP), Tundla (Satya Pal Singh Baghel-BJP), Pratapgarh (Sangam Lal Gupta-Apna Dal), Manikpur (RK Singh Patel-BJP), Balha (Akshayvaralal-BJP), Iglas (Rajveer Diler-BJP), Jalalpur (Ritesh Pandey-BSP) and Zaidpur (Upendra Singh-BJP).

If we talk about the Samajwadi Party, it got 1,55,53,620 with a vote share of 18 per cent. Which clearly indicates that the party got 24,35,347 votes less than what it polled in 2014. So, the SP doesn’t seem to be gaining anything out of this alliance either. This is probably why the party chief Akhilesh Yadav very readily accepted to go solo on all 11 Uttar Pradesh Assembly seats.
     
"If the alliance ends, we will field SP candidates on all 11 seats up for bypolls after consulting party leaders soon. Even if our paths are different, we welcome it," Akhilesh said. 

The Congress got just 54,57,269 votes with 6.3 per cent votes in the recently held Lok Sabha Elections in the state. The Apna Dal (S) got 10,39,478 votes with 1.01 per cent of votes.