New Delhi, December 8
In the tussle for power between the Congress and the BJP, the going has been tough for the BSP too with its supremo Mayawati trying hard to prove that her “social engineering" formula was not one shot in the dark.

The results may not have given desired pay-offs to Maya as right now there appears to be no urgency for any party in any state to seek BSP's support to form the government. But if current trends are any indication, the mainstream parties like the Congress and the BJP cannot afford to ignore the slowly developing political clout of the BSP, especially in the wake of Lok Sabha polls.

Initial vote-percentage figures appear heartening for the BSP in most states. The party may not have performed up to its own expectations in terms of seats, but it seems to have done quite well in terms of vote share in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi.

As far as Delhi is concerned, Maya's party has managed a good vote percentage of almost 13, cutting both into Congress as well as BJP vote banks. The party opened its account for the first time in Delhi winning two seats and also contributed to the defeat of the Congress as well as the BJP in some other seats.

With the BSP eating into the vote share of Congress and BJP, the ruling party admitted on Monday that it slipped on this count in its anxiety to fight the BJP.

The Congress said in its anxiety to fight the BJP, it concentrated more on the saffron party and lost out on formulating BSP-centric strategies to counter Maya factor in the border areas of MP. “We need to work out a strategy to confine the BSP to UP,” Congress spokesman Veerappa Moily said.

“We had only been concentrating on the BJP not the BSP ... This is where we slipped," Moily said, adding that the party would look into the issue to prevent BSP eating into the Congress support base in future.

In Rajasthan, Maya made a good attempt to make a dent this time. The party won only two seats in 2003, but it increased its vote percentage from 2.17 percent in 1998, when it fought for the first time in the state, to 3.98 percent in 2003.