New Delhi, Sept. 21: As the battle for Mumbai is projected to be a close one, the BJP sees gains from the Bahujan Samaj Party contesting as many seats as possible and no particular benefit from the presence of the Samajwadi Party.
Sources involved with the polls said the Samajwadi Party?s position had ?fallen? from the high it touched in 1998 and 1999, when it picked up Assembly seats. For instance, in Mumbai, its supposed stronghold, its votes had dropped by 90 per cent. In Umerkhedi, it picked up 18,000 votes in 1999, but only 1,500 in 2004. Outside, it polled around 15,000 votes in just two Lok Sabha seats each in Vidarbha and Marathwada.
While Samajwadi Party sources put their performance down to leader Mulayam Singh Yadav?s preoccupation with Uttar Pradesh, those in the BJP believe Muslims have returned to the Congress between 1999 and 2004. ?It seems the Narasimha Rao effect which put off minorities has petered out,? said sources.
On the other hand, the BJP is keeping tabs on the BSP because ?it is the one party to which rebels from the Congress and NCP are gravitating?.
In the Lok Sabha polls, the votes polled by the BSP in at least nine seats were more than the margin derived by the winning candidate. The BJP?s calculation was that even if the BSP got 10,000 votes, it would make the difference between victory and defeat for the Congress-NCP because of the fight for the Dalit-Muslim votes between these parties. ?If the BSP takes away 40 to 45 per cent of the Dalit votes, it?s advantage BJP-Sena,? said a source.
According to the BJP, the BSP was ?strongest? in Vidarbha, which had 66 of the 288 Assembly seats. The Dalit population in this region was higher than in other areas.
An added factor favouring the BSP was its elephant symbol which was synonymous with Babasaheb Ambedkar and the original Republican Party of India. When the RPI split into many groups, each claiming the symbol, the Election Commission froze it.
Sources said the BJP was also banking on BSP leader Mayavati?s ?aggressive? image, which was supposed to go down well with the Dalits ?fed up with the repeated compromises their Maharashtra leaders made with the Congress?.
