The BSP’s good show in the Assembly by-elections, which comes at the halfway mark of the BSP government in UP, lays down the agenda for the second half of Chief Minister Mayawati’s tenure.

In all likelihood, she is going to further strengthen the “back to Bahujan” policy, which she had adopted after the Lok Sabha elections, as she prepares for the 2012 Assembly elections.

BSP founder Kanshiram had defined Bahujan as the combination of Dalits and OBCs.

Mayawati started working on this combination after the BSP’s poor show in the Lok Sabha election.

Until then, the party had depended on a Dalit-Brahmin combination, as it had worked well in the 2007 Assembly elections.

The Lok Sabha election compelled the BSP to go back to the basics and it has paid off. The party has won 9 of the 11 Assembly bypolls.

The party’s success in OBC constituencies like Etawah, Bharthna, Padrauna and Jhansi indicates that the party has been able to win over these communities.  

Barring Jhansi, in all the constituencies, the BSP candidates have won by a convincing margin, even in places like Bharthana and Etawah, which were regarded as Mulayam Singh’s stronghold.

In Jhansi, BSP’s Kailash Sahu won by a margin of only 9 votes, but here too the fact is that the party’s nearest rival was its rebel.

While the BSP’s state president and its OBC face Swami Prasad Maurya registered his victory by more than 53,000 votes in Padrauna, Mahendra Singh Rajpoot of BSP won the Etawah seat by a margin of 32,000 votes.

... contd.