2002 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election


Elections to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly were held in 2002. Following a spell of 56 days of President’s Rule from 3 March to 2 May 2002, Mayawati became Chief Minister on 3 May 2002 for the third time after the BJP extended support to the BSP. BJP state president Kalraj Mishra resigned, and was replaced by Vinay Katiyar, who thought up slogans like "Haathi nahin Ganesh hai, Brahma Vishnu Mahesh hai" to defend the alliance. But the problems kept mounting, and Mayawati resigned in August 2003.
On 29 August Mulayam was sworn in as CM with the support of BSP dissidents, and ran the government until 2007. It is said that BJP leaders convinced Vajpayee that Mulayam would help in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections — Mulayam did not, however, help, and while the NDA lost power at the Centre, the SP got 39 Lok Sabha seats, its highest ever. Some BJP leaders continue to believe that Mulayam would have been marginalised had he not been helped in 2003.

Results