One of them is the chairman and managing director of the Rs 1,800-crore Pune-based DSK group, DS Kulkarni, who will contest from Pune.

More than 500,000 Brahmins and around 400,000 Dalits are the majority voters in the Pune Lok Sabha constituency. The Marathas and OBCs constitute around 250,000 voters each.

"We will continue with our social engineering formula, which has produced good results for us in Uttar Pradesh [Images]. We will contest from all the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra and will include all castes and communities including dalits, OBCs, Marathas, Brahmins, Muslims and tribal communities," BSP's Maharashtra unit chief Vilas Garud told Business Standard.

The three other Brahmin candidates are environmentalist Jayendra Parulekar from Ratnagiri, head of a prominent shipping company AK Tripathi from Thane, and chief priest of the popular Kalaram temple, Sudheer Das, from Nashik.

DS Kulkarni's candidature is expected to hit the Bharatiya Janata Party's [Images] performance in Pune, where the party depends on the huge chunk of Brahmin voters. It could also benefit Indian Olympic [Images] Association president and Congress Member of Parliament from the city, Suresh Kalmadi.

"We do not care what benefits whom. The BSP was polled 4.6 per cent votes in last Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra and we plan to increase this to 12 per cent this time," Garud said.