BSP chief Mayawati’s attempts to spread its presence across the country suffered another jolt on Thursday with the party failing to even match its dismal performance in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.

The state elections were seen as a test case for Mayawati’s attempts to pitchfork the BSP at the national level, particularly as no attempts have been made by her to hide her prime ministerial ambitions. However, after the BSP’s poor Lok Sabha poll showing, Thursday’s results have come as a second blow to the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister within a year.

The Haryana results are a prime example of the BSP’s downhill graph outside its home turf of Uttar Pradesh, which shares its border with the state. It ended up with one seat here, the same as last time. In Maharashtra too, its story was a repeat of 2005, with the party again failing to open its account.

The results of Haryana also raise questions over Mayawati’s strategy of going it alone in elections. The BSP had entered into an alliance with Bhajan Lal’s Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) in June for the Assembly elections, but broke it just ahead of the polls. The BSP also chose to stay away from the 17-party Third Front in Maharashtra. In fact, the BSP’s rival in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party, joined the Third Front and won four Assembly segments in Maharashtra.

In the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year, the BSP had increased its vote share in Haryana to 15.74 per cent, a five-fold increase from 3.44 per cent in the 2005 Assembly elections. It ended up third in terms of votes in the Haryana Lok Sabha polls, just marginally behind Om Prakash Chautala-led INLD. However, as the results trickled in on Thursday, it was clear that the BSP had slipped in the state.

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