LUCKNOW:  The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) considered  to  be mouthpiece of  weaker sections of society has captured power in India's largest state Uttar ardesh by winning 205 seats in the house of 403 (as at 11 PM) defeating ruling Samajwadi party and national aprties like Congress and BJP.

The BSP president Mayawati has stormed Uttar Pardesh and got the credit of being president of any political aprty getting absolute majority in the state after 14 years.

The 51-year-old Dalit leader, who unseated her bitter rival Mulayam Singh Yadav and delivered a body blow to the BJP's hopes of building on its string of victories in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Mumbai corporation, will assume reins of power for the fourth time. She is expected to take oath of office on May 13.

The BSP, which always campaigned on an anti-upper caste plank in its two decades of electoral politics, fought the polls this time without any allies and won 205 seats of the 400 seats for which results were declared. The party had secured 99 seats in 2002 elections.

Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, who won from both Gunnaur and Bharthana, conceded defeat in the wake of his party's drubbing and resigned in the afternoon. His Samajwadi Party suffered severe losses, winning 97 seats, coming down drastically from 143 in 2002.

Consolidating on her traditional base among Dalits, Mayawati gave tickets to 138 upper caste candidates, including 86 Brahmins and a large number of Muslims and OBCs, besides 93 Dalits.

In today's results, the BJP, which had hoped to make big gains in UP ahead of 2009 Lok Sabha poll, suffered major reverses, winning only 51 seats along with its allies against 88 it had in the outgoing House.

Chief campaigner Rahul Gandhi's electioneering appeared to have helped the Congress only retain its existing strength in the House. It won 22 seats against the 25 it had in the previous assembly. Independents and others accounted for 26 seats.

Popularly known as 'Behenji', Mayawati, who did not contest the elections, single handedly demolished rival bastions and proved wrong all pollsters who had projected a hung assembly.

Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party lost 46 seats to be in the second position with BJP and its allies a distant third at 51 seats. The saffron party lost 37 seats.

Congress, along with its allies, was hoping to improve its tally of 25 after star campaigner Rahul Gandhi pitched in to revive the party's fortunes but managed only 22 seats. Independents and other smaller outfits walked away with 26 seats.

The BSP's strategy of wooing Brahmins and other upper castes in a big way in a rainbow coalition helped add to its traditional vote base of Dalits and Muslims. The BSP may ultimately not need support from other parties to run a government.

In the others category, the Janata Dal-United and the Loktantrik Congress headed by Naresh Agarwal won one seat each. Independents won four seats.

The Ajit Singh-led RLD had won 15 seats and the CPI-M one seat. Others accounted for the remaining 32 seats.