Poor show in Delhi may cost BSP its national party status

Barring a few seats, the Bahujan Samaj Party, which fielded candidates in all the 70 constituencies in Delhi, registered a poor show in the assembly elections.

The party, which has been trying hard to maintain its national party status, managed to win below 1,000 votes in most of the constituencies while some of its candidates polled substantial votes.

The development may not come as good news to party supremo Mayawati as the Election Commission is set to take a call on its show-cause notice to BSP as to why its national party status should not be withdrawn.

In Adarsh Nagar, Ramniwas of BSP managed to get 681 votes while Rajbir secured 815 votes in Ambedkar Nagar. Similarly, Mohammad Abdul Haq could muster 754 votes from Babarpur.

But the party registered respectable performance in some Delhi seats. In Gokalpur, its candidate Surendra Kumar secured 30,080 votes. In Seema Puri, party candidate Jai Shree secured 3,548 seats.

The BSP had urged the EC to postpone a decision on its national party status till the outcome of the Delhi Assembly elections.

Following their poor performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, EC had issued show-cause notices to Bahujan Samaj Party, Nationalist Congress Party and Communist Party of India, asking them why their national party status should not be withdrawn.

A political party becomes eligible to be recognised as a national party if it has won 2 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha (11 seats) from at least three different states in the latest general election.

Also, if the party has polled 6 per cent of the total valid votes in Lok Sabha and assembly polls in at least four states, in addition to winning four Lok Sabha seats.