New Delhi/Lucknow: After Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the worst hit in the current round of Assembly election is BSP supremo Mayawati. It could be the end of the road for the dalit czarina, the worst hit in the Modi tsunami in Uttar Pradesh.
Ms Mayawati has been out of power for nearly10 years now. This is the third successive defeat for her party since she lost power to the Samajwadi Party in the 2012 Assembly polls and was subsequently routed in the Lok Sabha polls.
If the BSP fails to make inroads in the 2019 general elections then her political survival would be at stake. This year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll drubbing is also expected to create further divisions in her loyal Dalit caste base, with the non-Jatav already gravitating towards the BJP.
Ms Maywati, who had built the party organization in Uttar Pradesh brick by brick with tremendous public outreach in the initial days, has been later accused of having become inaccessible and building a coterie around herself.
The BSP was also the last one among all parties to latch on to the social media.
After the death of BSP founder and her mentor Kanshi Ram in 2006, Mayawati had formed its first majority government in 2007 on the Dalit-Brahmin social engineering formula.
But she has failed to hold on to her vote bank thereafter and the party's fortune have been dipping ever since. The BSP managed to get merely 21 seats in the UP Assembly in 2012 and could not win a single seat in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
Her wooing of the Muslims this time by giving them 100 seats also seems to have backfired. Her assertion during election speeches that Muslims should vote for BSP in order to keep the BJP at bay apparently led to reverse polarization of Hindus, which worked in the BJP's favour.
This is evident by the defeat of two of the three members of the Mukhtar Ansari's family in their own bastion. The BSP also suffered on account of allegations of corruption that were leveled against the party leadership by leaders who walked out of the BSP.
The allegations gained credibility as leaders, one after another, walked out of the party and spoke of tickets being sold for a price.
