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Sunday, May 16, 2004

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Opinion - News Analysis

The BSP makes it in Maharashtra

By P. Sainath

Can a party that has not won a single seat be said to have "arrived"?

Yes, if we are talking of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Maharashtra. The BSP was a vital factor in ensuring the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party ended up with just 23 seats. But for the BSP's showing, that number could have been 31 or more. Instead, their BJP-Shiv Sena rivals got 25 seats. And the BSP factor cost the Congress-NCP seats across several regions. This means the latter now have much alliance-building and hard bargaining ahead for the Assembly polls barely five months away.

The BSP got over one million votes in the State in the Lok Sabha polls. It did not win a single seat. But more than half those votes were in Vidharbha. Where the Congress-NCP lost in 10 of the region's 11 contests. In four seats there, the BSP on its own accounted for Congress-NCP defeats.

In Bhandara, the BSP grabbed over 90,000 votes. That saw the fall of the NCP leader and Sharad Pawar lieutenant, Praful Patel. He lost by just 3009 votes. In Chandrapur, the BSP took over a lakh of votes. Naresh Puglia of the Congress lost to the BJP by less than 60,000. In Chimur, the BSP took nearly 10 per cent of the vote. The Bharatiya Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) of Prakash Ambedkar took just 2.88 per cent. Together, it was enough to ensure the defeat of Prof. Jogendra Kawade of the RPI. These elections saw the BSP eat into the Dalit base of the Republican Party of India (RPI) and the Congress party's own Dalit vote.

In Ramtek, the 8.6 per cent taken by the BSP's Prof. Rotele destroyed the former Minister, Shrikant Jichkar of the Congress. Mr. Jichkar lost to the Shiv Sena by just 2.18 per cent.

In Wardha, the BSP's Somraj Telkhede drew 8.63 per cent of the vote. The Congress leader, Prabhatai Rau, lost the seat to the BJP by just 0.51 per cent. In Yavatmal, the BSP and SP polled enough votes to ensure the defeat of Uttamrao Patil of the Congress.

However, it was not only in Vidharbha that the BSP undermined the Congress-NCP alliance. In Solapur, in Western Maharashtra, the BSP ensured the defeat of Ujwala Shinde, wife of the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde. The BSP candidate took 12,067 votes. That is, more than twice the margin by which Mrs. Shinde lost. This is a seat the Congress has lost twice in seven months. Yet, it was one in which they had improved their vote share dramatically in that time. But the BSP's presence saw them fall short by 5,798 votes.

Beyond that, the party had little impact in the western region. It could be said, though, to have partly helped defeat the NCP in Khed. There, the BSP and the BBM got a total of 2.25 per cent. The NCP lost by just a fraction more than that. It also helped lower the NCP's margin in Satara to 0.58 per cent. The BSP clocked in fifth but took 2 per cent of votes that might otherwise have gone the NCP's way. The BSP's western Maharashtra showing is a measure of how close the race was in the State. It got just 130,000 votes across the whole region. That was enough to cost the Congress the Solapur seat. It also caused them discomfort in at least two others.

The party caused some damage for the Congress-NCP even in the Mumbai-Konkan region. Mostly, it had no impact in urban areas. But in Thane, it took 24, 828 votes. The NCP lost the contest by just 22,258 votes.

In Marathwada, the NCP lost the Osmanabad seat by just 1,649 votes. The BSP candidate took 10,918 votes.

In Khandesh region, too, it cost the Congress a seat. In Erandol, where the BJP beat the Congress by just 1.33 per cent, the BSP took 3.03 per cent. In Jalgaon, the votes of the BSP and SP put together exceed the margin of the Congress' defeat.

The BSP came fourth in the Adivasi seat of Dhule where it got 3.98 per cent. But that brought the Congress margin there down to just 1.75 per cent. It came similarly close to causing grief for the NCP in Nashik, where it took 2.35 per cent of the vote. The NCP beat the Shiv Sena here by a mere 1.29 per cent. However, the CPI too took 2.72 per cent in this seat.

There are eight seats where the BSP's presence clearly accounted for a Congress-NCP defeat. There are three where the votes it and the BBM drew, if taken together, exceeded the Congress-NCP's margin of defeat. There are two where it had that impact if taken together with the SP. And there are a few seats where the Congress-NCP should have won comfortably but just scraped through because of the BSP factor. Rarely have small parties had such a big impact in Maharashtra.

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