Keeping Up with UP | Is this a make-or-break election for Mayawati? - Hindustan Times
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Keeping Up with UP | Is this a make-or-break election for Mayawati?

BySunita Aron
Feb 17, 2022 10:50 AM IST

Her supporters believe that her role as king or kingmaker is crucial this election. Will she side with the BJP if the party needs her or will she slink into political irrelevance? March 10 will tell us. 

If there is one leader in Uttar Pradesh (UP) who can get votes simply by word of mouth, it is Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo, Mayawati. And the truth is, even her political adversaries cannot deny that. Her diktat spreads like fire, without any smoke. And it is this political skill that makes her the most enigmatic leader in the state, as the party cadre knows where their votes (Dalits, mainly Jatavs) have to be polled.

Even as speculation is rife about her tacit understanding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mayawati is keeping her cards close to her chest. (HT File Photo) PREMIUM
Even as speculation is rife about her tacit understanding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mayawati is keeping her cards close to her chest. (HT File Photo)

Even as speculation is rife about her tacit understanding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mayawati is keeping her cards close to her chest and waiting for March 10 — the day of the results.

Thus, while the battle of ballots might have narrowed down to a bipolar contest between the BJP and its main challenger, the Samajwadi Party (SP), she remains a force to reckon with — at least until the end of this election. There has been a steady decline of the BSP since 2007. The party's vote percentage has declined from 30.46% in 2007 and 25% in 2012 to 22.3% in 2017. As for seats, the BSP's numbers have come down from 206 in 2007 to 19 in 2017. If this downslide continues, then BSP will be back to its formative stage, when its vote strength wavered below 10%.

King or kingmaker

And while political quarters are abuzz with motives that her rivals are attributing to her dull campaign, the cadre still pins their hopes on her political acumen and a hung House. “If the BSP gets 50 seats in a house of 403, Mayawati will be king or kingmaker.”

Dr Satish Prakash, a Dalit activist from Meerut, states, “The BJP committed a blunder by hyping up the SP while ignoring the fact that BSP’s voters are emotionally attached to Mayawati. Her first physical rally on February 2 in Agra changed the scenario,” he said.

Mayawati, in about half-a-dozen rallies so far, has raised the issue of Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 to target the SP, and the Hathras and Shabbipur incidents to paint the BJP as anti-Dalits. In Hathras, a Dalit woman was gangraped, murdered, and buried at midnight on September 14, 2020, while in Shabbipur, the Thakurs and Dalits had clashed over the installation of BR Ambedkar’s statue and, subsequently, over a procession by Rajputs to mark the birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap on May 5, 2017, in Saharanpur village.

Unlike in past elections when Mayawati addressed multiple rallies in a day, she is now addressing rallies only at the divisional level, while selecting Dalit-dominated locations for it.

Two of her sympathisers from the academic world, in east and west UP, insist that the results will surprise pollsters who believe that the 2022 contest is bipolar.

“The problem is that the media doesn’t focus on us and we also don’t seek the limelight. The BSP’s functioning is beyond the media's comprehension. We work silently,” said a professor in Banaras Hindu University (BHU), who strongly rebuts the charge that “behenji” (as she is widely known) is diverting her votes to the BJP in order to defeat the SP.

He further asked, “Why should she divert her votes to the BJP when she is fighting for our empowerment? She was the first to declare party candidates and she was the first to dispatch Muslim, Brahmin and backward leaders across the state to conduct conventions. Is she contesting elections to finish off her own party when her vote base has remained at more or less at 22% or above?” 

Another professor from west UP made an interesting argument. “What if the BSP gets 50 seats and the results throw up a fractured verdict? While the BJP would not mind propelling her on to the chief minister’s chair in exchange for an alliance at the national level — a proposal made by late BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the 1990s — the SP may also come forward to support her to keep the BJP out.” According to him, all post-poll combinations and permutations will have their basis, keeping in mind the 2024 general elections.

The B-team perception

BSP chief has not once, but twice, vowed to ensure the defeat of the SP, which many believe is a part of her tacit understanding with the BJP.

The professor from BHU claims that the BSP’s national general-secretary, Satish Chand Mishra, called SP chief, Akhilesh Yadav, twice after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to iron out the misunderstanding. “He refused to take our call and Mayawati then decided to break the alliance that the two had sealed for the 2019 polls, sinking their two-decade-old animosity,” he said.

The SP, however, is convinced that Mayawati ensured their candidates' defeat in the elections by diverting votes.

The professor claims that again, at the time of the Rajya Sabha polls, the BSP, in a friendly overture, telephoned the SP president offering to support the candidature of Dimple Yadav for the Rajya Sabha seat in 2020. Again, there was no response from the SP president after which the BSP fielded Ramji Gautam.

The fact is that it was with the BJP’s support that Ramji Gautam won the election as the BSP did not have the requisite numbers to win even one seat. Her strength in the state assembly of 403 was just 19.

Thus began the perception about the BSP-BJP understanding, known as the B-team perception. And this perception grew as the party’s iconic figure Mayawati led a lacklustre campaign in the political arena this time.

The BSP's trajectory

The founder-president of BSP, Kanshi Ram, always described the Congress as “enemy number 1” and the BJP as “enemy number 2”. However, when it came to entering into electoral alliances, he had approached the Congress first at the national level (this did not materialise).

The BJP was still a fledgling party in the early 1990s, riding on the Ram temple issue, and was growing steadily. So, he chose the SP in UP for his first alliance and succeeded in forming the government under their slogan of a backwards-led Bahujan Samaj government. It could not last long as the Yadavs and newly-empowered Dalits clashed for socioeconomic supremacy.

Their relationship had a violent separation in June 1995. From then on, the BSP grew and Mayawati became the chief minister thrice with the BJP’s support and once with a majority in 2007. The BSP reunited with SP in 2019 for the Lok Sabha elections. By then, while Kanshi Ram had died and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son had taken charge of the SP.

Now, in 2022, she is a friend of none, but may not be averse to sharing power or seeking support for power. Thrice when the BJP extended support to Mayawati to become chief minister, her party was a small player.

This election will decide if she can manipulate her ascent to power or if the downslide will continue, losing her tag in the state as a “force to reckon with”. ​

From her perch in Lucknow, HT’s resident editor Sunita Aron will highlight important issues related to the coming elections in Uttar Pradesh

The views expressed are personal

Unveiling 'Elections 2024: The Big Picture', a fresh segment in HT's talk show 'The Interview with Kumkum Chadha', where leaders across the political spectrum discuss the upcoming general elections. Watch Now!

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