Mayawati Promises Cautious Consideration For Muslim Candidates After Poll Debacle

A day after the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) failed to secure any seats in the Lok Sabha elections, Mayawati expressed disappointment that the Muslim community did not support her party, despite their significant representation on the candidate list. She stated that the community did not understand her party, and henceforth, she would only consider Muslim candidates “after a lot of thought.”

This is not the first time the BSP has failed to win any seats in the Lok Sabha elections. In 2014, the party also did not open its account, and in 2019, they secured 10 seats due to an alliance with the Samajwadi Party.

The BSP had fielded 35 Muslim candidates.

Mayawati’s former ally, Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, managed to breach the BJP stronghold by securing 37 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. Their INDIA bloc ally, the Congress, won six seats, including Rae Bareli and Amethi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which achieved landslide victories in the previous two general elections, won just 33 seats in Uttar Pradesh and only 240 seats nationally, falling 32 seats short of a simple majority. They had won 303 seats in 2019.

During the election campaign, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress had urged Mayawati to join the INDIA bloc, but she declined their invitations.

Mayawati announced that her party would conduct a thorough analysis to determine the reasons behind its poor performance in Uttar Pradesh.

Expressing her dissatisfaction with the lack of support from the Muslim community, who appeared to have voted for the INDIA bloc, she said the community did not understand her party.

“The Muslim community, which is an important part of the Bahujan Samaj Party, is not able to understand the BSP properly despite being given proper representation in the past elections and this time also in the Lok Sabha general elections. So, in such a situation, the party will give them a chance in the elections after a lot of thought so that the party does not suffer a huge loss in the future like this time,” Mayawati said, per PTI.