BSP president Mayawati’s potential allies in UP may look forward to joining her government if she makes it on May 11, but it is with equal dread they view the prospect of ceding ground to her party’s dominant status in the coalition arrangement as well as the region. It is not just Mayawati’s domineering and demanding ways that the parties are apprehensive of. Many former coalition partners, like the BJP, have learnt the hard way, that a partnership with the BSP erodes its vote base, in favour of the latter.

Congress party heir Rahul Gandhi has already said the party suffered irreparable damage in UP after it entered into an alliance in 1996 with the BSP. Mayawati too has always maintained that her party suffers whenever it enters into a pre-poll alliance with the Congress. For potential coalition hopefuls in UP today, like the Congress and Ajit Singh’s RLD, the picture can look

grim in states outside UP too.

As a potential coalition leader says, “Mayawati in power has a domino effect in other states too, and several states where the BSP has considerable influence, only stands to benefit Mayawati’s party.”

It was only recently, at the Delhi civic polls last month, that the BSP blew the Congress away by eating into its votes in nearly 80 seats, ensuring its defeat at the hands of the BJP. The BSP which had only one seat in the last civic poll, won a surprising 15 seats to make its mark in the Capital. It also holds portentous tidings for the Congress in the forthcoming Assembly

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