The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and ex-Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Mayawati, has accused the ruling BJP and the principal Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) of being allegedly “hand in glove”, claiming that they have “lost sleep” since her party entered the fray from the nine Assembly seats bound for the November 20 bypolls in the state.

In the 2022 UP Assembly elections, out of these nine seats, the SP had won four as against the BJP’s three, with the RLD and the NISHAD party getting one seat each.

Of these seats, the BSP had then finished as the runner-up in one seat, the SC (Scheduled Castes)-reserved Khair in Aligarh district, and in third position in seven seats, which include Katehari, Phulpur, Meerapur, Karhal, Kundarki, Ghaziabad and Majahwan.

The BSP had put up its best show in Khair, where its candidate garnered 26% votes, losing to the BJP’s candidate by over 74,000 votes. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), then an SP ally, had finished third in the seat with 16.57% votes. The RLD is now part of the BJP-led NDA.

In Katehari, where the SP had won, defeating the BJP’s ally NISHAD party with a margin of 7,696 votes, the BSP got 58,482 votes (23.62% votes). For the upcoming bypolls, all the three major contenders – the BJP, SP and BSP – have fielded the OBC candidates in the constituency.

In the OBC-dominated Phulpur seat, where the BJP had defeated the SP with a margin of 2,732 votes, the BSP had finished third by getting 33,036 votes (13.4% votes).

In Majhawan, where the NISHAD party had emerged victorious by trouncing the SP with a margin of 33,587 votes, the BSP secured 52,990 votes. While both the BJP and the SP have fielded OBC nominees for the seat bypoll, the BSP has nominated a Brahmin candidate.

In the 2022 elections, the RLD had won from Meerapur, defeating the BJP by 27,380 votes, with the BSP finishing at third place by getting 23,797 votes (11% votes). In the bypolls, both the BSP and the SP have fielded Muslim candidates in the seat.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had bagged the Karhal seat, defeating the BJP’s SP Singh Baghel by over 67,000 votes. The BSP’s Kuldip Narayan had ranked third by garnering 6.37% votes. For the bypolls, the BSP has fielded its OBC leader Avanish Kumar Shakya. Shakyas are the second most influential OBC community in Karhal after Yadavs. The SP has fielded Akhilesh’s nephew Tej Pratap Yadav, while the BJP has also fielded a Yadav face.

The SP had clinched the Muslim-dominated Kundakri seat in Moradabad district, defeating the BJP with a margin of 43,162 votes, with the BSP finishing third by securing 42,742 votes (15.73% votes). The BSP has nominated a Muslim candidate from the constituency.

In the Ghaziabad seat, the BJP had defeated the SP by 1.05 lakh votes, with the BSP coming in third position with 13.36% votes.

In 2022, the BSP had finished fourth in the Sishamau seat where the SP had won by defeating the BJP by 12,266 votes. The BSP had got just 2,937 votes (1.88% vote share).

The Congress, which had then contested the state Assembly polls solo, had finished third in Sishamau with 5,616 votes. In the current bypolls, the Congress as an ally of the SP has declared its support to the latter in all nine constituencies after not getting the seats it wanted to contest.

Although Mayawati and her nephew and BSP national coordinator, Akash Anand, are in the party’s list of star campaigners for the bypolls but sources said both the leaders may not hit the campaign trail.

In a statement issued Saturday, Mayawati appealed to the voters to support her party in the bypolls. Her move to field the BSP candidates is clearly aimed at setting up a triangular contest in all nine seats in a bid to project her party as a challenger to both the BJP and the SP.

She has accused the BJP and the SP of allegedly contesting the polls with “mutual understanding”.

The BSP’s fortunes have declined in UP over the last several years. In the 2022 Assembly polls, the party had managed to win only one seat out of 403, with its vote share plunging to 12.88% from 22.23% in the 2017 polls (19 seats).

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BSP could not win a single seat in UP despite contesting 79 of 80 seats, with its vote share sliding by 10% to 9.39%.