The party increased its tally from nine in 2004 to 21 this time, defying opinion polls conducted by various political parties and electronic channels. This time, the Congress managed to secure a 18.25 per cent vote share against the 12.04 per cent it managed in 2004.

The biggest success for Congress came from eastern UP known as Poorvanchal where it won 10 out of 32 seats.

The shift of Brahmins from the BSP - it represents a failure of the BSP's social engineering formula — and the drift of Muslims away from the Samajwadi Party to Congress also helped the party to win more seats this time.

Muslims were unhappy with the Samajwadi Party as its president Mulayam Singh Yadav joined hands with former BJP leader Kalyan Singh, who was responsible for demolition of the Babri mosque on December 6, 1992.

Political observers feel that the Rahul factor also helped Congress in a big way as he was able to connect with people looking for a stable government at the Centre at a time when the world is reeling under recession and the Taliban threat is looming large. .

The people of the state were also fed up with the caste and communal politics pursued by BJP, SP and BSP.

The development plank of Rahul Gandhi and the success of NREGA scheme besides the loan waiver fetched support for the Congress in the rural areas of the State.

The growth of Congress is evident from the fact that it won only 22 seats in the UP Assembly polls in May 2007. This time, the tally has increased to 125 assembly segments.

The ruling BSP managed to add only one seat to its 2004 tally of 19 seats. Its vote share this time is 27.84 per cent against 24.61 per cent in 2004. Going by the performance in the May 2007 assembly polls, the BSP should have bagged more than 45 seats in the Lok Sabha this time.

What is even more shocking for the BSP is that the party won only two seats in reserved constituencies while her arch rival Samajwadi Party managed to win 10 seats from this category. It may be mentioned that the BSP had won as many as 59 reserved constituencies in the last assembly polls.

The erosion in its traditional Dalit vote bank and loss of Brahmin and Muslim votes has forced Mayawati to convene a meeting of all ministers and candidates in the Lok Sabha polls to review the poor performance. She has of course blamed the Congress, BJP and SP for hatching a conspiracy to prevent the BSP from getting Muslim votes.

As a follow-up action, Mayawati has also secured the resignations of 200 party leaders who had been made chairmen and given other important posts in various public sector corporations. These leaders were asked to sign on a typed letter in which they were told to take up moral responsibility for the defeat. of party candidates in their regions. She also dissolved all bhaichara committees meant for social engineering, which failed to work this time.

Although Mayawati invoked NSA against BJP candidate Varun Gandhi for his hate speech, it could not attract Muslim votes for the party. Muslims voted only for those candidates who were powerful. Otherwise, they shifted to Congress. Incidentally, the BSP had managed to get the support of Muslims in the May 2007 assembly elections.

A major cause of worry for Mayawati is the fact that as against the 206 assembly seats she had won in the May 2007 assembly polls, this time, she had a lead only in 100 assembly seats.

Political observers blame it all on Mayawati who had distanced herself from party leaders and workers, making her inaccessible. Even senior ministers, party MPs and MLAs and other leaders found it difficult to meet the chief minister. They also blamed large-scale corruption and deterioration in the law and order situation in the state as she had given tickets to the maximum number of criminals this time.

Significantly, most of the criminals fielded by the BSP including Atiq Ahmad and Arun Kumar Shukla alias Anna and DP Yadav were defeated this time.

The killing of an engineer who refused to donate to Mayawati's birthday celebrations fund — BSP MLA Shekhar Tewari was widely perceived to be behind the incident - also had an adverse impact on the BSP's poll prospects. Similarly, an employee of PCF committed suicide after she refused to give the money demanded by her senior officers.

As if all this was not enough, an LJP candidate was killed allegedly by the supporters of BSP candidate who ultimately won in Jaunpur. Although the state police termed the incident as a suicide, circumstantial evidence indicate that it could have been a well-planned murder. All these incidents during the last six months angered the people of the state, who were already upset over the waste of thousands crores of rupees on construction of memorials in the state. Now, Mayawati has to perform. Otherwise, she will perish in the next elections, say observers.

The biggest loser in these elections is the Samajwadi Party which won only 23 seats with a 23.26 per cent vote share against 35 seats it had bagged in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls with a 26.74 per cent vote share. The decline is due to the shift in Muslim votes caused by the Mulayam-Kalyan tie-up. The open revolt by senior SP leader and former minister Mohd Azam Khan, known as the Muslim face of the party, also harmed the SP. The extent of Muslim alienation from the SP is clear from the fact that not a single candidate from the minority community got elected on the SP ticket this time!

Mulayam's calculation that by joining hands with Kalyan he would ensure the support of the Lodh community to the SP does not seem to have worked. If anything, it alienated the Muslims, who had been supporting him since 1990 when Mulayam, who was the then Chief Minister, ordered a police firing on the kar sevaks to protect the Babri masjid.

The only consolation for Mulayam is that his party managed to ensure the victory of sitting MP from Rampur and Bollywood actress Jaya Prada despite stiff opposition from Azam Khan. Mulayam also managed to ensure his own victory from Mainpuri and that of his son, Akhilesh from both Kannauj and Firozabad. His nephew Dharmendra won from Badaun. The SP also led in 118 assembly constituencies this time.

Although UP is the home state of BJP president Rajnath Singh, the saffron party was able to win only 10 seats — the same number it had secured in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

Party leaders were expecting that its Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani, party president Rajnath Singh, Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and the new Hindutva poster boy, Varun Gandhi would be able to sway the voters in favour of the BJP. That did not happen. BJP had also relied heavily on the charisma of Yogi Aditya Nath of Gorakhpur for winning more seats in eastern UP. But this time, his magic failed.

Significantly, senior BJP leader Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi has admitted that the hate speech of Varun Gandhi and the campaign by Modi had affected the prospects of party candidates in many constituencies.

Political observers feel that poor selection of candidates also caused damage to the party. Lack of coordination and poor organisational health is also being held responsible for the BJP's dismal show this time. The party managed to come second only in eight seats.

Besides Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi who has taken the centre-stage and Lalji Tandon who has shifted to Delhi as an MP, there is hardly any important leader left with BJP in UP to take on the BSP. Another senior BJP leader Kalraj Mishra is also spending more time in Delhi these days.

The BJP's support base has shrunken drastically as the party has managed to lead only in 62 assembly constituencies this time.

The Rashtriya Lok Dal led by Ajit Singh contested eight seats in alliance with the BNJP. But it could win only four seats, including those of Ajit himself and his son, Jayant Choudhry. RLD led only in 21 assembly segments this time.

The next test for all the parties would come during the by-elections to as many as 12 assembly seats in the near future. (IPA)