Mayawati’s candidates are most educated of them all

Dalits may be at the bottom of the country’s socio-economic order, but when it comes to fielding educated candidates in parliamentary elections, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party scores over the others. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: May 7, 2009, 02:22:22 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Delhi

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Dalits may be at the bottom of the country’s socio-economic order, but when it comes to fielding educated candidates in parliamentary elections, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party scores over the others.

The BSP has fielded more graduates and post-graduates than any other national party. Also, the share of graduates among BSP candidates has risen sharply from 38 per cent in 2004 to 50 per cent in this election, according to an analysis of data available for the first four phases of polling.

According to data compiled by National Election Watch, a voluntary campaign, the BSP is slightly ahead of Congress in fielding more graduates and post-graduates in the 468 Lok Sabha seats that include Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand apart from seats covered in the first four phases. BSP has 264 graduates and post graduates in the fray, while Congress has 258.

However, the BSP lags in candidates with doctorate degrees. It has only eight, compared to 26 from Congress and 17 from BJP in the first four phases.

Experts said the numbers reflect a trend wherein the first generation beneficiaries of affirmative action are now seeking a bigger say in the country's affairs.

"The rich among upper castes are turning apolitical and dalits are now seeking electoral power," said Arun Kumar, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Mayawati was a teacher before she joined politics, and her party was built on financial and intellectual support of such Dalits who made it to government jobs and bureaucracy with the help of affirmative action.

In Uttar Pradesh, where BSP is in power, it outsmarts other parties when it comes to giving tickets to educated candidates. Similar trend is visible in Delhi but not in Rajasthan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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