GROUND DOWN

The sharp erosion of BSP votes can be pinned on the party's failure to repackage its message and work towards sustained cultural awakening

- PUJA AWASTHI

What is the difference between a zero and an all-time low? In politics, it is not as clear as in mathematics. The Bahujan Samaj Party got no seats in the Lok Sabha polls, but in vote share it went back 35 years to when it fought its first election in 1989.

The BSP, known for its stunning political performances and mystifying alliances, has been on a slow slide for a while. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, five years after its best ever performance of 2009 (21 seats), it fell to zero. In 2019, despite its vote share being lower than 2014, it won 10 seats. This time the party garnered around 2 per cent of the votes nationally, and 9.4 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. In 2019, it got 3.66 per cent votes nationally and 19.4 per cent votes in UP.

Nationally, though, it was not the BSP’s worst show. In 1991, it had just 1.61 per cent of the vote and three seats. And in terms of vote drop, it saw a sharper decline in 2014 (1.98 per cent).

But if this election is being dubbed the BSP’s lowest point, it is because of what it means in the larger electoral universe—the kind that matters most. In the Lok Sabha election of 2019, it won 10 seats and came second in 27, where it polled between 30 to 48 per cent of the vote. In 2024, its candidates did not come second in any constituency in the state. In the 10 seats that it had won in 2019, it stood third in nine and came fourth in one.

It repeated candidates in Amroha and Jaunpur constituencies; they both finished third. In Shravasti and Ghazipur constituencies, where its MPs defected to the SP and contested, both won, while a third defector lost as a BJP candidate in Ambedkar Nagar.

The BSP’s losses were mopped up mostly by the SP, which won six of the 10 BSP seats, while one seat each went to the Congress, the BJP, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram).