Assembly Elections 2017: Why BSP's prospects in Uttar Pradesh look dim

UP ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2017 - The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), led by Mayawati, has been put across largely as a “poacher” and a “vote cutter” in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, dimming the party’s standing as an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Congress combine sought after by politically significant and big social groupings. Mayawati, known by the moniker “Behenji”, continues to inspire respect among sections of the Dalits and instills  a degree of confidence among those Muslims who recognised her potential to be a more effective challenger to the BJP than the SP-Congress in places.

However, BSP—the first party to get a majority of its own in 2007 after a long spell of messy coalitions—is unlikely to repeat that feat because the magic figure of 207 Mayawati had attained then was catalysed by a rainbow social alliance that had space for almost every major social grouping. In the ongoing polls, Mayawati has forfeited the backward caste votes, especially those of the most backward castes, and the upper caste votes to the BJP.

The BSP is not the first choice of most Muslims because they were skeptical of Mayawati’s past tendency to do business with the BJP and install herself as the chief minister if an electoral verdict was unclear. Tanveer Akhtar, a small farmer of Isauli in the Sultanpur district who supplemented his earnings by driving a hired car, said, “Mayawati remains suspect for us although she recently clarified she would rather sit out in the Opposition than go with the BJP. We can’t take her words on face value because she craves for power above everything else.”(READ MORE)

UP polls 2017: BSP has an edge and Mayawati is likely to return to power

UP Polls 2017 - Six months prior to the 2017 Assembly elections, the battle for power in Uttar Pradesh was seen as a fight between the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by Mayawati and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which is presently ruling at the centre. The BJP's chances had dwindled slightly after its state vice president Dayashankar Singh made some inappropriate comments against Mayawati. At that point, the Samajwadi Party, the party currently in power, was widely perceived to be out of the race.

All of a sudden, a series of melodramatic incidents within the SP's ruling family catapulted Akhilesh Yadav from the status of 'half CM' to full chief minister and leader of the party. Earlier, he was often taunted to be subordinate to the SP's big four: his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, uncle Shivpal Yadav, uncle Ram Gopal Yadav and senior leader Azam Khan. The impression formed that since Mulayam was publicly taking the side of his brother Shivpal, party cadres would remain loyal to Shivpal if it came to choosing between him and Akhilesh. However, Akhilesh proved everybody wrong and now is the undisputed claimant to the chief ministership on behalf of the Samajwadi Party, with Shivpal and even Mulayam having been marginalised. The state witnessed a silent coup by a serving ruler who has been able to unshackle himself now.(Read more)

UP polls 2017: Maya's fortunes hinge on winning reserved seats from SP, BJP

UP elections 2017 - In many ways, Uttar Pradesh  2017 is not just a survival game for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) but also a matter of pride for party matriarch Mayawati. An indicator of whether Mayawati will become the next chief minister (CM) of UP depends on whether she can win in most of the 55 new reserved constituencies created after the delimitation exercise in the state in 2008. Before delimitation in 2008, UP had 89 reserved constituencies. Now there are 85. Furthermore, in the 30 constituencies that continued to be reserved post 2008, Mayawati would have to make big strides to reclaim the ground she ceded to the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

That may be hard, but not impossible. The BSP has not been able to recover from the effects of the 2008 delimitation exercise that not just reduced the number of reserved constituencies by four, but also made the new ones less concentrated with Dalits who form the party’s core voter base.

In 2012 assembly elections, in the 55 new reserved constituencies, the BSP managed to win just 11. Mayawati’s biggest challenge will be to uproot the SP from these new reserved constituencies. To do so, she may have to win most of 30 seats which the SP won in 2012 in the newly-created reserved assembly constituencies. What makes her job harder is that before she could make a mark on these newly-reserved constituencies, the BJP had already made rapid inroads into them.(Read More)

UP Assembly polls: Now, astrologers predict outcome

UP Polls - With the Election Commission banning opinion polls from February 4, astrologers have taken to predicting the outcome of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls that begin on February 11.

Representing diverse interest groups, while one set of soothsayers has forecast an outright win for the "gathbandhan" (Congress-SP alliance), another set has vouched for the exact opposite.

Pramod Gautam, chairman of Vedic Sutram, told IANS: "Phoney pundits should stop distorting a much respected and time-tested science. We base our findings on authentic birth charts of the key players."

Pratik Pandey of Astrosage.com said: "These days so many fake astrologers have flooded the market that they have created a credibility crisis. People have begun suspecting this esoteric science."

Releasing his predictions, at a press conference on Tuesday, Gautam, whose earlier predictions on three occasions were proved correct, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "clearly the winner as his stars continue to be favourable". This, he said, should benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in UP.(Read More)