The Congress in Uttar Pradesh lost its security deposit in 387 of the 399 seats it contested in the recently concluded assembly polls. The party won from just two constituencies. Although having contested nearly all seats, Congress got just 2.4% of the total votes, lower than RLD’s 2.9% from just 33 seats it contested.
Former CM Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is one other major party that lost the deposit in 290 seats out of all the 403 it contested, as per a Times of India report. Even the winner BJP lost the deposit in three of the 376 seats it contested and its strong challenger Samajwadi Party (SP) lost deposit in six of its 347 seats.
The BJP’s alliance parners – Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad party – did not lose their deposits in even one of the 27 seats they contested, an indication that they were given only those seats in which they had a chance of putting up a fight.
Contrastingly, the SP’s minor parties SBSP and Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) saw 8 of their combined 25 candidates losing security deposits. Even senior ally RLD lost its deposit in three of the 33 seats it contested.
As per election rules, a candidate who fails to secure at least one-sixth of the total valid votes polled in a constituency loses the deposit. Overall, of the 4,442 contestants in UP, 3,522 or nearly 80% failed to get back their security deposits.
The assembly elections were swept by the BJP for a straight second term after it got the highest 41.3 per cent vote share, followed by the Samajwadi Party with 32 per cent votes, according to the Election Commission. In the 2017 assembly polls, the BSP had contested all 403 seats and won only 19 of them while its deposit was forfeited on 81 seats. The party had polled over 22 per cent of the total votes cast in 2017.
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