BENGALURU: Barring the sole victory in
Kollegal, where its candidate N
Mahesh defeated Congress’ AR Krishnamurthy by nearly 19,500 votes, the
Bahujan Samaj Party (
BSP) had zero impact, garnering very few votes in the 16 other seats it contested as part of its pre-poll alliance with JD(S).
The BSP was roped in by JD(S) as part of its V-O-D-KA (Vokkaliga, Dalit and
Kannada) strategy, with the national party representing Dalits
“With a total of 0.9% vote share, BSP had managed to get about 2,000-odd votes in nine seats where the winning margin was just 2,000 votes. In two of three seats JD(S) won by a margin of just 1,000-odd votes, BSP had got the same number,”
Gowda had said.
However, the failure is being attributed more to the JD(S) strategy and less to BSP’s ability. MB Adinarayana, a social activist and political analyst, said: “Of 17 seats given to BSP, 11 were in the general category which obviously hurt the party’s prospects.”
In the 17 seats together, BSP got 1,02,451 votes of which 71,792 were garnered by Mahesh alone. BSP’s Alur Mallu, Chamarajanagar, said: “Although we were part of the alliance, JD(S) was not serious about it and provided zero support on ground with neither workers helping us nor leaders coming out for campaigning.”
GT Devegowda with N Mahesh (middle)