Even before the Karnataka results were fully declared, the Congress sounded the alarm about the BSP’s “spoiler” role.
NEW DELHI: Even before the Karnataka results were fully declared, the Congress sounded the alarm about the BSP’s “spoiler” role. “The BSP might make inroads into our vote bank. This may affect our chances of coming to power,” Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said on Sunday.
A statistical analysis of the results confirms what is rapidly emerging as the Congress’s biggest nightmare. In at least 14 assembly segments, the BSP may have contributed to the defeat of its candidate and stopped the party from having a go at government formation.
Here’s some number crunching. The BSP’s vote share plus the Congress party’s vote share is more than the vote share of the BJP in 13 constituencies. Turn to p13
In the 14th, the two together edge out the JD(S) winner. In most places, the BSP managed to capture nearly 4 per cent of the votes and in one constituency, it bagged over 11 per cent. While the figures do not reveal which social segment voted for the BSP, Congress leaders believe that Mayawati’s newfound aura after her UP victory held sway over the Dalits, even in faraway Karnataka.
If the BSP had not contested then and if its votes had gone to the Congress instead (as conventional wisdom would suggest), the BJP would have stopped at 97 seats while the Congress tally would have risen to 94. The field would then have been wide open for both and JD(S) leader Deve Gowda could have played his games.
Mercifully, this didn’t happen and the process of government formation is likely to be a smooth one. But for the Congress, the numbers have worrying implications for upcoming elections when the battle shifts to north India where Mayawati’s shadow looms large on the political horizon.
Consider the four states where assembly polls will take place in November-December this year. These are Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. Unlike Karnataka, the BSP has a small but established presence here and is now banking on ripples from Mayawati’s stunning UP victory to create a momentum for the party to build on this base in the upcoming state elections.
The BSP may not win enough seats to force a hung assembly but even before the battle has begun, Congress leaders are gripped by fears of the havoc she could create by upsetting traditional voting patterns. Mayawati has made no secret of her ambition to spread her wings beyond UP into neighbouring states and for the past many months, she has been working to a plan by sending feelers to the discontented in the Congress in all four states to join the BSP.
“We have to come up with a strategy to contain her, otherwise she will eat us up,” said a senior Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh. “She won’t win but she’ll make sure we lose.”
In all four states, elections are traditionally a face-off between the Congress and the BJP. Consequently, they are an important battleground for the next general elections. It is here that the fortunes of the two national parties will be decided and those numbers will determine which of them bags the right to lead the next government at the Centre.
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