BSP's poor show: Maya can't be an RS member next year

The BSP, which fielded nearly 100 Muslim candidates, won only four out of the 77 assembly seats dominated by Muslim voters.

The political career of Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati, whose party clinched a measly 19 of the 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, looks like having received a shock.

Mayawati's BSP, which finished a poor third in UP, will not be in a position to send her to the Rajya Sabha again when her current term ends next year.

The support extended by different Muslim organisations and clerics to BSP on the eve of the assembly polls did not pay off for the party.

The BSP, which fielded nearly 100 Muslim candidates, won only four out of the 77 assembly seats dominated by Muslim voters.

Some of the Muslim clerics who urged Muslim voters to vote for the BSP were the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Ahmed Bukhari, Shia cleric and a senior member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board Maulana Kalbe Jawwad, besides the Rashtriya Ulama Council, an organisation which has some influence in Eastern Uttar Pradesh.

These Muslim-dominated seats are situated in the districts of Rampur, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Amroha, Bareilly, Azamgarh, Mau, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Aligarh.

Rampur, where Muslims constitute nearly 50 per cent of the electorate, saw not even a BSP candidate elected.

A similar situation prevailed in Saharanpur and Moradabad.

The BSP also failed to make its presence felt in the Deoband assembly constituency in Saharanpur. The Muslim seminary Darul Uloo Deoband is located in Deoband.

In Amroha, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur, the BSP performed miserably. The party also could not fare well in Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Aligarh.

The only consolation for the party came from Azamgarh, where it won the Sagri, Mubarakpur, Lalganj and Didarganj assembly constituencies.

In Mau district, barring the Mau assembly seat which was won by the improsioned 'don'-turned politician Mukhtar Ansari, the party could not win other seats in the district.

Mukhtar Ansari's son and brother could not win.

Asked about the reasons for the BSP's defeat, Rashtriya Ulama Council President Aamir Rashadi told PTI, "Mayawati's arrogance (ahankaar

Pledging its support to the BSP last month, the Council had withdrawn 84 candidates fielded by it in the polls.