Mayavati in Delhi on Wednesday. (Prem Singh)

New Delhi, July 23: Mayavati may have failed in her bid to bring down the government, but her success in keeping her flock together is a talking point.

The BSP was the among the few parties, other than the Congress, that didn’t have to expel a single MP for cross-voting.

The success was sweeter given that the BSP boss not only kept her 17 lawmakers from straying but also enjoyed a bonus. She got five MPs from the rival Samajwadi Party to toe her line and vote against the UPA government.

On the eve of the vote, she ensnared the Samajwadis’ Rajya Sabha member Shahid Siddiqui, a high-profile cross-over that buffeted Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh.

“One of the reasons why no one defected is that we are giving results on the ground. Second, our working style is different and people are impressed,” said BSP MP Brajesh Pathak, whose high-pitched speeches in the Lok Sabha attracted the Speaker’s comments on more than one occasion.

Another leader put it down to the BSP’s iron-fist tactics. The party’s “military-like” structure, with “behenji as commander-in-chief”, had helped maintain discipline and forced MPs to stick to the official decision.

The flock earned praise immediately. “I am proud of them (the MPs),” Mayavati said after the vote.

Others in the BSP said she had promised the lawmakers they would be given tickets for the next general election.

As the dust over yesterday’s vote settled, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister appeared ready to continue with her big mission — making inroads into Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi.

That means a large swathe of the north and central regions.

In the recent Karnataka elections, the BSP had won a 7 per cent vote share.

In the Gujarat polls last December, the party’s nominees finished second in more than half-a-dozen seats, though the gain was said to be the result of a BJP strategy to split Congress votes rather than the BSP’s own initiatives.

Some leaders believe the next general election will see the BSP leap to a position where it will be the biggest challenger in Parliament to the BJP and the Congress.