Mayawati's 'elephant' tramples Mulayam's 'cycle' in UP

Lucknow, May 11 (UNI) Stitching an unassailable Dalit-Muslim-Brahmin alliance, Ms Mayawati led her BSP to an emphatic victory in Uttar Pradesh, giving a body blow to both the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, to end years of political instability in the state.

Proving all poll pundits wrong, Ms Mayawati appeared all set to take over the reins of the largest Indian state for a fourth time.

So strong was the wave in favour of her party, which contested the poll on the plank of ending the 'jungle raj' in the state, that even political analysts were compelled to say her 'elephant' (BSP's election symbol) had trampled Mulayam Singh Yadav's 'cycle' (SP's election symbol).

The BJP performed much below its own expectations suffering humiliating defeats in some of its own bastions, once again making the party to realise that it still has a long way to go in retrieving its vote bank in the state. The party's poor showing is being seen as a personal setback for BJP President Rajnath Singh, who hails from the state, just at a time when he was basking in the glory of its triumph in the assembly elections in Uttarakhand and Punjab and the municipal polls in Mumbai and Delhi and gearing up his cadre for the upcoming Goa assembly polls.

A shocked Mulayam Singh Yadav accepted his party's defeat and said he would submit his resignation to Governor T V Rajeshwar in the evening.

The SP's humiliation was so grave that many of the party's stalwarts were on the brink of losing the poll.

Despite hectic campaigning by party president Sonia Gandhi and her children, the Congress, which obviously was not a key player in the poll arena, was trying hard to hold on to its feeble vote bank in the state.

The immediate impact of the UP election outcome would be on the upcoming Presidential poll in which the BSP is now bound to play a decisive role in choosing the new occupant of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

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