Bahujan Samaj Party leaders are claiming that its performance in Haryana has improved from before. Not only this, the credit for this alleged improved performance is being given to Akash Anand, nephew of party supremo Mayawati. It is noteworthy that this time Mayawati also campaigned in Haryana but Akash Anand remained with her everywhere and also held rallies apart from her. This was the first election after Akash Anand got a big responsibility at the national level and was declared the successor of Mayawati. He also worked hard in this. But the claim that BSP is making does not have much substance.
The reality is that there has been no improvement in the performance of BSP. It contested elections on 36 seats in Haryana and got only 1.82 percent votes, whereas in 2019 it contested elections on 89 seats and got 4.21 percent votes. If we calculate the average of votes received this time according to 89 seats, then the party has got almost the same number of votes as it got last time. On top of that, some share of its votes this time also comes from the Indian National Lok Dal, with which the BSP had contested the elections. Then, when the party’s performance did not improve, Mayawati became angry and said that she would no longer coordinate with any regional party. Yes, BSP can be happy that its performance was better than Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party.