Muslim voters let BSP down, says Mayawati

LUCKNOW: Jatavs, the core of BSP’s vote base, stood by it in the Lok Sabha elections but Muslim voters didn’t despite being given a choice of candidates representing the community, party chief Mayawati said Wednesday in her first response to drawing a blank in UP.
“People from my caste voted mostly for BSP and I am grateful to them for this,” she said. “But from now on, BSP will field Muslim candidates only after thorough deliberations to avoid the massive damage that the party suffered this time.” The former UP CM said she was surprised at Muslims not identifying with what BSP stood for “even after they were given appropriate representation”.“Our party has taken the result seriously. We will assess our performance and take strict action in favour of the party and the movement.”
BSP contested 79 seats and gave tickets to Muslim candidates for 20 of these. Only five of them — in Amroha, Sambhal, Sant Kabir Nagar, Azamgarh and Ambedkarnagar — received more than 1.5 lakh votes. Qamar Hayat Ansari in Ambedkarnagar was the party's highest scorer with 1.9 lakh votes. The rest lost their respective contests by a margin of two to five lakh votes.
A source said Mayawati had entrusted BSP's national general secretary SC Mishra with the task of assessing the reasons for the bruising poll setback.