Ms Mayawati is due to Saheb Kanshi Ram ji . She killed her Saheb with the conievence of the entire parliament , political parties and the judiciary . Neither any member of the both houses of the parliament or any political party head issued any statement regarding this . Once Mr. Paswan criticized Ms mayawati at Jalandhar but he did nothing to get him released from the Mayawat Jail at Hamanyu Road , New Delhi !

The manuwadis honoured her by voting her in the U.P. assembly election 2007 . Now Mayawati criticize the Congress as well as extend support to the congress government at centre ! What an irony !

You talk about 1984 and Bhagalpur. Can you tell me one incident where the BSP has used violence to mobilise votes? Every other party, with exceptions like RJD and NCP, have done this. But BSP hasn’t. Can you tell me your views on this?

As for Mayawati campaigning for Modi, and blaming Muslims, it’s all addressed in my post above which I’m sure you haven’t read.

As for the transfers, I see nothing wrong with it. If on the basis of results she has feedback that administrative and police heads in some districts are not doing their job well and people are fed up of them, what’s wrong about transferring them? Is the Constitution being violated here?

You write, “Because then it will mean she is no different.” I ask, why do you expect Behenji to be different? Why do all Mayawati baiters always ask her to be all-clean, all-perfect Mahatma Gandhi (so to speak, the irony was unintended!) As a politician Mayawati is but naturally the product of the political context of Uttar Pradesh and India. A political context and culture which the mai-baap Kangress Partie has contributed to more than anyone else…

Re: “one should add RLD to BJP”

According to The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com/nic/howindiavoted2009/howindiavoted2009.htm), this combined figure is ~20%, way less than the BSP’s 27.4% (see http://www.hinduonnet.com/nic/howindiavoted2009/page1.pdf)

One question: given that the BSP’s vote share has actually increased vis-a-vis 2004 (albeit less than expected), and has only declined relative to the 2007 assembly elections, shouldn’t we also see what the data is on whether or not voters tend to vote differently in assembly versus Lok Sabha elections?

The other major limitation is its dependence on Dalit votes. The NES 2009 data suggests that the party draws a majority of its voters from Dalits — 52 per cent all over the country and 55 per cent in U.P. Nationwide, only about three to four per cent of the upper castes, peasant proprietor castes and Other Backward Castes voted for the BSP. Its support levels among the Scheduled Tribes were two per cent and among Muslims seven per cent. This time, the BSP secured a
quarter of the Dalit vote in the country, just five percentage points behind the Congress. But a disproportionate amount of the BSP’s Dalit votes is confined to the Jatav community to which Ms. Mayawati belongs.

There may be a third and somewhat hidden limitation of the BSP. About a quarter of BSP voters said their main consideration was that people of their caste or community supported the party. Only five per cent of respondents said they expected to benefit from the party coming to power and only 12 per cent voted for it because they felt its overall programme was good. It is important to note that the party receives greater support from voters who feel that the performance of the State government is more important than that of the Central government. While the party’s non-Dalit voters are unhappy about its nonperformance on the development front, Dalit supporters are also beginning to be resentful: 46 per cent of Dalits believe Ms. Mayawati has ignored their aspirations by promoting Brahmins and upper castes. As the BSP makes a transition from the politics of ‘bahujan samaj’ to that of ‘sarvajan samaj’ and looks for the ‘plus vote,’ it would do well to address some of these anxieties.
[Link - .pdf]

Do you mean we cant know what percent of Dalit electorate cast their votes? and compare with that of 2007 election? Without that any analysis of Dalit votes will be inconclusive.

[em]The CSDS survey had said that the BSP got 17% Brahmin votes in 2007, contrary to the hungama about the Dalit-Brahmin alliance made by the media and soem self-styled Dalit intellectuals. This time, the Brahmin votes dipped to 15%.[/em]

If you normalise it for increase in number of Brahmin-BSP candidates (86/403–2007 to 20/80–2000) I think the margin will be higher.