BSP may hurt Cong in 50 seats

MUMBAI: Even though BSP leader Mayawati claims that she has not entered the election fray in Maharashtra to help out the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, electoral calculations tell a different story.
The fact that BSP has fielded the largest number of candidates-272-for the coming assembly elections has not come as a surprise to political observers.
If BSP''s Lok Sabha poll performance in Maharashtra is measured in terms of assembly constituencies, it can be said that its presence will make a substantial difference in more than 50 constituencies, specially in Vidarbha and Marathwada.
BSP was instrumental in the Congress-NCP candidates'' defeat in nine constituencies - Bhandara, Wardha, Chandrapur, Malegaon, Erandol, Solapur, Ramtek, Osmanabad and Thane.
The votes polled by BSP candidates in these constituencies exceeded the winning margins of the Sena-BJP alliance''s nominees.
NCP leader Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra CM Sushilkumar Shinde had tried to ridicule BSP''s performance in the LS polls by suggesting that BSP candidates were, in fact, Congress and NCP rebels.
"People of Maharashtra will never accept an outsider," they had claimed. This was a couple of months ago, after the formation of the government.
But what is happening now is different. BJP leader Pramod Mahajan and Sena leader Raj Thackeray said BSP had the potential to become a force to reckon with. BSP would eat into the Congress-NCP support base, they predicted.