LUCKNOW: With BSP out of the fray, Dalit voters would play a crucial role in tilting the balance in Ghosi bypoll on Tuesday.

BJP, which has been getting the support of non-Jatav Dalit voters in the past few elections is going all-out to woo the Jatavs, who are staunch supporters of the Mayawati-led outfit.Political analysts believe that with SP banking on Muslim-Yadav (MY) combination plus a big chunk of Thakur voters, who are likely to back its candidate Sudhakar Singh, and BJP’s Dara Singh Chauhan, an OBC, too relying on the BJP’s upper caste vote base along with non-Yadav OBC voters, the battle will clearly be decided by Dalit voters.Until the last day of the campaigning till 5pm on September 3, the BJP leaders, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, made every effort to remind the voters about Dalit atrocities during the SP rule while the SP leaders chose to keep mostly mum on Dalit politics.Political observers believe that this was a part of this strategy that Yogi in his speech made a barbed attack on SP, reminding the voters about 2005 riots when Mualayam Singh Yadav was the chief minister, and the Congress, but remained mum on the BSP.

Yogi even reminded the voters of the Guest House episode of 1995.

He said whenever the Samajwadi Party got the opportunity to work for the people, “they got involved in Guest House Kand (episode)."Irked by the BSP’s decision to withdraw from Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government, angry SP workers had attacked Mayawati while she was holding a meeting with her party workers at the Lucknow’ Meera Bai Marg State Guest House on June 2, 1995.

Her room was vandalised and she was allegedly abused and beaten up.

It was the intervention of then BJP MLA Brahm Dutt Dwivedi that Mayawati could be escorted to safety.Yogi did not end here and went on to state that not only this, the SP leaders also made a bid to rename the buildings named against Dalit icons.

He also said that when the SP government came to power, its leader, Akhilesh Yadav even announced converting various memorials built in the name of Dalit icons into marriage halls etc.

Many observers believe that this was BJP’s bid to not only woo Dalits as the BSP has abstained from the bypoll but also to keep doors open for any future tie-up or an understanding with the BSP keeping in mind the Lok Sabha elections 2024.Even during its worst performance in the past two and a half decades, BSP managed to get 12.88% votes in the 2022 assembly polls.

Observers said based on the unwavering support that Mayawati has got among Jatavs for the past a couple of decades, there is no doubt that the majority of this vote share happened to be from Dalits.

Out of Ghosi's 4.38 lakh voters, there are 70,000 Dalits, mostly Jatavs.