LUCKNOW: The BSP 's gamble of contesting the UP civic polls on party symbol for the first time in 22 years appears to have paid off with the party performing unexpectedly well in urban areas by winning two mayoral posts.Urban areas in UP are not the traditional stronghold of the Mayawati-led party. "The party is upbeat with the results that have come as a shot in the arm for cadres who have been struggling since the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 assembly polls," a senior party leader said. "This was the logic behind the party deciding to go into the urban body elections on party symbol as the leadership felt that there is a need to work with renewed vigour and missionary zeal through a new strategy to deal with fresh challenges after electoral contests in which the party did not fare well," he said.Though the BJP is a clear winner, bagging 14 of the 16 mayoral posts, the BSP registered twin success in Meerut and Aligarh, wresting both seats from the BJP.Besides, the BSP candidates also performed well in Jhansi, Agra and Saharanpur losing the last seat by a margin of just 2,000 votes, he said.Both the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, however, failed to open their account in the elections for the mayoral posts.Unlike the BJP, which had put in all its resources and leaders spearheaded by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanth , the BSP had reposed its faith on its state-level leaders, including state unit president Ram Achal Rajbhar, among others for campaigning.Behind the BJP's massive win was the strong army of the saffron party and RSS cadres, over 300 UP MLAs and ministers working full time to reach out to voters.Adityanath himself criss-crossed the state to campaign for civic elections, something unusual for a chief minister to do.Apparently, this was also the first time when the ruling party released a full-fledged manifesto for a local body election and the head of the government himself campaigned on a war footing for civic bodies which have traditionally remained the strong hunting ground for the BJP, he stressed.The BSP, in contrast, made little noise with its national president not only staying away from campaigning, but also busy in other states.Despite not being a party in active campaign, she had been busy in formulating a strategy and overseeing the campaigning, he said.Party insiders feel that what worked in favour of the party was the Dalit-Muslim combination.The party supremo will further consolidate it along with the backwards for the next electoral contest in 2019 for Lok Sabha, though the party is likely to keep its options of striking a respectful alliance open. BSP candidates Sunita Verma and Mohammad Furkan won from Meerut and Aligarh respectively.In 2012 civic polls, the BSP did not contest on party symbol but it supported Abhilasha Nandi, who won the Allahabad seat.The BSP's win in the two west UP districts was crucial as the two were earlier dominated by the BJP. Meerut is a stronghold of former BJP state president Laxmi Kant Bajpai.The performance of the BSP in the civic polls is expected to boost the sagging morale of the party cadre, which was otherwise disenchanted by repeated electoral defeats in recent times.An analysis of the results shows Mayawati not only retained her core Dalit vote bank but also managed to get back those who had shifted their loyalties to the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and then again in UP assembly elections.

Source: Times of India December 05, 2017 06:08 UTC