Lucknow, May 14 (IANS): For the Bahujan Samaj Party, the municipal poll results in Uttar Pradesh have dashed hopes of a revival for the party.

The BSP suffered a setback in the urban local bodies election as it failed to notch up a win on mayoral seats.

The performance of the party in the Nagar Palika Parishad (NPP) and Nagar Panchayat (NP) chairman posts was also dismal.

In the 2017 civic polls, the BSP had bagged Meerut and Aligarh mayoral seats but in the 2023 election it was relegated to the third position on both seats.

The only consolation for the party was that its candidate ranked second in Agra, Saharanpur and Ghaziabad mayoral seats.

The BSP had played the Dalit-Muslim card in the urban local bodies poll. Out of the 17 mayoral seats, the BSP fielded 11 Muslim candidates.

By giving the ticket to the maximum number of Muslim candidates, BSP chief Mayawati had planned to win the support of the Muslim community in the civic polls and continue the trend in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

After its dismal performance in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, Mayawati had blamed Muslims for its poor performance.

"BSP had polled 12 per cent vote in the 2022 Assembly election that constitutes its core Dalit supporters. If the Muslim community supported the BSP in the election then it could have defeated the BJP," she had said.

Party insiders said that the disillusionment of party cadres with the leadership are mainly responsible for the kind of results that the BSP got in these elections.

"The party has lost direction in terms of ideology and there is no second rung leadership that can interact with the grassroots workers. In such a situation, the cadres are refusing to participate in the political process and are receding into their homes," said a party functionary.