In Uttar Pradesh elections, the BJP and BSP appear to have reached an unusual common ground: on how Mayawati’s party fared on March 10. First, BJP senior leader Amit Shah told News18 that contrary to political forecasts, Mayawati remains “relevant” and that the BSP will gain Muslim support at the same time as its core Jatav vote. On Tuesday, Mayawati thanked the Shah for his “greatness” in the same words and said the Samawadi party’s claim that it has a monopoly on the voice of Muslims is wrong.

In fact, an analysis of the candidates proposed by the BSP suggests that the party is likely to lose more seats to the SP than the BJP.

One of the reasons is the number of Muslim candidates the BSP has fielded in the election, and the SP hopes to overtake the BJP by mustering the support of all its Muslims and Yadav and additional votes from other communities.

For the 403 seats, the BSP fielded 88 Muslim candidates and the SP coalition fielded 61. In 2017, when the BSP fielded 100 Muslim candidates, only four managed to win.

Both the BSP and SP coalition have nominated Muslim candidates for at least 28 seats. Most of these seats are in the western UP, where the SP expects to have the fewest problems following an alliance with the RLD to bring together Muslim and Jat voices.

Apart from that, BSP fielded Muslim candidates against non-Muslim SP candidates in 44 seats.

SP and BSP party leaders acknowledged that while Muslims voted more or less for the SP coalition, the BSP would be divided for seats with strong Muslim candidates. “The majority of voters support the coalition to avoid wasting votes, but the BSP will also get a small stake based on the candidate,” the BSP leader said.

Specifically, in the six seats of Shekhupur, Aliganj, Chhibramau, Bakshi Ka Talab, Kunda and Gainsari, Muslim BSP candidates will hurt SP Yadav candidates.

By the way, the BSP has also proposed Yadav candidates for some seats. Like Mulhaney, it will run in the final stage of the election on March 7. With both SP and BSP stationed in Yadav, the BJP believes their Thakur candidate has a chance to win in the seat dominated by Yadav.

Surprisingly, while the Brahmins were not satisfied with the Yogi Adityanath government, the opposition parties fielded fewer Brahmin candidates than the BJP. Compared to the 62 Brahmin candidates proposed by the BJP and its allies, 54 were proposed by the BSP, 34 by the SP Alliance and 48 by the Congress. Last time BSP sent 62 Brahmins and 4 of them won.

In the run-up to the election, both the BSP and SP held a series of meetings to engage the Brahmin community. BSP National Secretary SC Mishra has spoken at such gatherings across the state and Manoj Pandey has organised these events for SP.

Complete news Source : The Indian Express