UP chief minister Mayawati gave a stinging reply to her detractors with a stunning wins in nine of the 11 assembly constituencies where byelections were held Saturday last.
UP chief minister Mayawati gave a stinging reply to her detractors with a stunning wins in nine of the 11 assembly constituencies where byelections were held Saturday last.
The results announced on Tuesday come as a shot in the arm for the Dalit icon buffeted by attacks over her fetish for building multi-crore memorials and putting up her own statues. The BSP had won only one of these 11 seats in the 2007 state election.
In an equally significant development, Congress nominee Raj Babbar won the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat by a whopping 85,000 votes, virtually heaping ignominy on SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav whose bahu Dimple Yadav was the party nominee in the bypoll. Yadav's son Akhilesh had won the seat in the Lok Sabha election. Firozabad is a SP bastion.
In fact, the SP has been completely routed in this round of byelections. The party had won five of these 11 seats in 2007. It lost all, including Mulayam's stronghold Etawah and Bharthana; the latter Mulayam had won in 2007 and vacated it after becoming MP.
A crestfallen Mulayam conceded defeat, saying: "I am saddened by the results… it is the mandate of the people and we accept it with all humility." He added: "We will analyse the results and make the changes needed (in the party) soon."
The BJP lost both the seats it had won in 2007, including the party's stronghold in Lucknow-West which the BJP had retained since 1984. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee's appeal failed to move voters. Though the Congress won the Lucknow-West seat, the results proved that the party had still not learnt from past mistakes.
However, Congress leaders are jubilant and claim it's a major victory. “The results have proved that SP and BJP have been wiped out. Now the main contest is between the Congress and BSP," UP unit spokesman Dwijendra Tripathi said.
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