GHAZIABAD/NOIDA: Once a political force to reckon with in UP, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress are struggling to make their presence felt in the state election. The vote share of both the parties has been on a steady decline since 2017, including in Noida and Ghaziabad.
In the 2022 Assembly election, the average vote share of the BSP and the Congress was 11.87% and 2.25%, respectively, in all the three constituencies of Gautam Budh Nagar — Noida, Jewar and Dadri, as per the Election Commission figures.
Similarly, the BSP’s average vote share in all five Ghaziabad constituencies — Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Loni, Modinagar and Muradnagar — was 9.19%. The Congress’s was just 3.7%.
But the two parties put up an impressive show in 2007. In GB Nagar, the BSP had won all the two seats — Dadri (Noida was part of the Dadri constituency then) and Jewar — registering an average voting percentage of 32.9% and 34%, respectively. The Congress, too, was not far behind in 2007 — the party’s average vote share in these two constituencies of GB Nagar was 18.34%. In fact, it had ended up runners up from Dadri seat.
In Ghaziabad, the BSP won the Modinagar seat, securing 21.25% votes, in 2007, while it came second in the remaining two seats — Ghaziabad and Muradnagar (Loni and Sahibabad were carved out in 2012). The BSP’s average vote share in 2007 was 22.72%, while the Congress’s average voting percentage was 12.47%.
2012 was BSP’s year as it bagged all the three seats in GB Nagar and all the five in Ghaziabad. The average voting percentage of the BSP in Noida in 2012 and 32% in Ghaziabad. The Congress in 2012 too secured an average vote share of 21.96% in GB Nagar and 19.56% in Ghaziabad.
In 2017, the two parties were routed by the BJP which won all the eight seats. That year, the average vote share of the BSP in GB Nagar was 24% and 15.16% in Ghaziabad. And in 2022, the two parties hit nadir.
Sanjay Mishra, who teaches political science at Ghaziabad’s MMH Degree College, said, “Mayawati’s reluctance to engage voters was way too evident. And for the Congress, its inability to address its core problem of leadership is costing it elections after elections.”
