After the BSP’s lacklustre performance in the Lok Sabha elections, Chief Minister Mayawati’s magic has worked in the Assembly bypolls, with her party bagging nine of the 11 seats where polls were held. In 2007, it had won only one of these seats.

It has wrested seats from the Samajwadi Party — which was the main Opposition party and also the Congress — which now claims to be the main Opposition in the state.

Among the seats the BSP has won are Bharathna — vacated by Mulayam Singh Yadav — and Padrauna and Jhansi, which were vacated by Union ministers R P N Singh and Pradeep Aditya Jain respectively after their election to the Lok Sabha this year.

For the win, the BSP leaders give credit to Mayawati who stayed away from the campaign but did whatever she could to ensure a low-key, but intense campaign at the grassroots level. She personally monitored the entire campaign on a day-to-day basis and assigned tasks to workers as and when necessary. “She had made it clear she would not go to any constituency to avoid polarisation of anti-BSP votes for a single candidate, as had happened in the past,” said a party worker.

According to sources, Mayawati had asked her party coordinators to select at least 30 workers from districts that are adjacent to the Assembly constituencies where bypolls were held. “She deployed workers from different districts in every sector of these Assembly constituencies and directed them to give emphasis on the door-to-door campaign. This strategy has yielded results,” said a BSP leader.

... contd.