IF ANY political party can be dubbed as the “dark horse” in the race to Uttarakhand assembly elections then it will be undoubtedly the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which has decided to contest on all 70 assembly seats in the up-coming elections in 2012. BSP chief and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati has asked all her party supporters and workers to pull up their socks and ensure that the party creates a history in the state too like it did in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh elections when the party came to power with a thumping majority.

The Bahujan Samaj Party has some eight MLAs in the present Uttarakhand assembly and if the party gets a chance to improve its tally and get around 15 seats then in a close contest case between the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC), the key to power will be in the hands of the BSP which would play an important role in the formation of government in the state.

The growth and acceptance of BSP as a party among the people in the hill state in recent times has been adding more worries to the leaders of both the Congress and the BJP, who somewhere at the back of their mind, have started feeling that in case of a close finish among the two leading parties, they have to come to the doors of Mayawati for taking her support and that would mean the next government in Uttarakhand will be a coalition government in which the chances of BSP-Congress led government seems to be pretty high.

The same could happen in Uttar Pradesh if the Congress is able to increase its tally and taking the anti-incumbency factor into place, the BSP-Congress could make government in coalition here too, if the BSP supports the Congress candidature for the Chief Minister's post in Uttarakhand for the next five years then it will be Congress, which in return will have to lend its support to Mayawati for the next five years here in Uttar Pradesh.

Though there are no permanent enemies and friends in politics, it is all about the timing, what suits the best to the interest of the parties involved and placed at that moment on the political chess board.

The state of BJP right now is not good in Uttarakhand and so their chance of returning to power look bleak. There will be the anti-incumbency factor, and the infighting among the top leaders is also not hidden from anybody and thus the BJP president Nitin Gadkari called the Uttarakhand Chief Minister, Dr Ramesh Pokhariyal ‘Nishank’ along with former chief ministers and senior party leaders Maj.Gen.B C Khanduri and Bhagat Singh Koshiyari to Delhi on Thursday in order to resolve differences among them, which are doing more harm than good to the party. The party’s image has also suffered a lot due to this infighting.

The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) the ally of the BJP right now in the state has also been singing a different tune. The party wanted the government of India to restart all the hydro power projects in the state which were stopped under pressure from various noted environmentalist, NGOs, the Sadhu-sant samaj and other Hindu organisations.

Though the party doesn’t have a strong hold in the state, this will only benefit the BSP in times to come. After the Haridwar convention of the BSP held recently, the party workers are brewing with confidence and they hope to bag maximum seats so that next government in the state could be formed only with the support of their party.

The BSP will surely play an important role in the Uttarakhand elections and if this comes true, a new state will get included in the list of BSP ruled states besides our very own Uttar Pradesh.