Mayawati is working to stitch a social umbrella that will include Brahmins, Dalits and Muslims. It would be a mistake to dismiss her in this election
Campaign activities have now gained momentum in Uttar Pradesh where elections are slated for early next year. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is visiting the districts and making direct communication with the public. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is inaugurating projects and Union Home Minister Amit Shah along with BJP national president JP Nadda is making forays into different areas. Leaders of different opposition parties have also started working on their strategy to counter the ruling BJP government.
After Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the focus is on Akhilesh Yadav who is also drawing massive crowds wherever he is going. People wait for hours, even till midnight, to get a glimpse of Akhilesh. Even Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi is drawing good crowds enthusing hopes among the party mandarins that Congress may spring a surprise in this election.
In all election surveys, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is being given the number three position after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Samajwadi Party (SP). Congress is being projected as the number four party in every election survey. Despite, BSP being projected as a third position no one can rule out the importance of Mayawati in UP politics. The political pundits believe that rejecting Mayawati in these elections would be a great mistake as she and her party can still prove to be a dark horse in this election.
Recently, many senior leaders deserted BSP, and the majority of them joined Akhilesh’s party and the rest, BJP. This has not affected Mayawati as she claimed that those who left BSP had gone alone, thus signifying that the cadre is still with her. Bahujan Samaj Party has a committed a vote bank of over 20 per cent. Mayawati wants Muslim votes in UP. The party has successfully carried out Brahmin Sammelans across the state. She is insisting on maintaining the old base of Dalit and Brahmin votes in BSP. In such a situation, BSP can surprise everyone at the Hustings.
In various election surveys conducted in the state, BJP has been projected to get 41 to 44 percent of the votes, while SP, as per surveys, is likely to get 32 percent votes, followed by BSP (15 percent), Congress (6 percent) and others also six percent. In terms of seats, pollsters have projected that BJP would get 241 to 249 seats and SP’s share would be between 130 and 138 seats. The surveys say that the BSP may end up getting between 15 and 19 seats and the Congress between 3 and 7 seats. All the election surveys have given more or less the same projections which show that there would be a direct contest between SP and BJP. The surveys have ignored BSP.
These surveys have not amused Mayawati as she contends that such surveys do not affect her party. She has also demanded that Election Commission should ban such surveys because she believes that they are being carried out to influence some parties’ fortunes. She alleged that a large amount of money exchanged hands during these surveys. According to leaders close to Mayawati, the voters of BSP do not participate in the election surveys and they keep silent and are supposed to throw surprises in the elections. The think tank in BSP believes that UP elections would witness a direct contest between BJP and BSP, not SP as projected by many surveys. The belief in Mayawati’s camp is that BSP will give a tough fight to BJP on every seat.
What has made BSP leaders confident is the ground support that the party enjoys. They have a point because BSP’s vote share has remained almost the same despite the BJP wave. In the 2017 elections, the BSP got the highest 22.7 per cent votes after BJP, whereas SP got 21.8 percent votes in that election. Similarly, in the Lok Sabha elections held in 2019, BSP had won ten Lok Sabha seats with 19.26 percent votes. Samajwadi Party that on the other hand contested election as an ally of the BSP got 17.96 percent votes and could win only five seats. Even evaluation of the previous results shows that the vote share of BSP in the 2012 assembly elections was slightly above 25 percent. This was 5 percent less than the party’s 30 percent votes polled in the 2007 elections when Mayawati had formed the government in UP. This 5 percent shift in vote share in 2012 led SP to get 224 seats and Akhilesh Yadav was sworn in as Chief Minister while BSP’s seats came down to 80. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the party got 27 percent votes and 20 seats. So, in terms of vote share, the BSP has been consistent.
In the case of Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav has stitched caste alliances with small parties. Rumours are that many senior leaders from BJP, including some Cabinet rank ministers, are likely to leave the party and join SP. Akhilesh’s alliance with Om Prakash Rajbhar Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), Mahan Dal of Keshav Prasad Maurya, and Apna Dal (K) of Krishna Patel in eastern UP and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) of Jayant Chaudhry in western Uttar Pradesh would pay a rich dividend. There is a belief among SP leaders that despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi withdrawing the contentious farm bills, the Jats will support the RLD which in turn will help the Samajwadi Party.
But, what could prove detrimental for Akhilesh is his relations with his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav. Despite extending an olive branch and waiting for his Rs bhatija’ to announce seat-sharing with him, Shivpal was cold-shouldered by Akhilesh. It is no secret that Akhilesh does not have political acumen that his father Mulayam Singh Yadav has. Akhilesh is not suave as his father and does not have the appeal all over the political spectrum, again like his father. The alliances he had made are not natural alliances and are made more for electoral gain. Take the example of Mahan Dal or Apna Dal, which are basically Kurmi caste-dominated parties. The Kurmis and Yadavs, both intermediary castes, are at loggerheads at the ground level. Similarly in western UP, Jats and Muslims generally are not on the same page. Muslims are SP’s vote bank while Jats had voted for BJP and RLD in previous elections. In this election, will the Jats and Muslims vote jointly?
The BJP leaders are seeking votes on the basis of work being done by both the Yogi and Modi governments. They are emphasizing the virtue of Rs double engine’ government. The Congress is trying to find a toe hold in UP. The focus is on Priyanka Gandhi. The enormous task before her is to build a party structure at the ground level. In this scenario, it is not prudent to ignore BSP. Mayawati is working to stitch a potent social engineering umbrella that will include Brahmins, Dalits and Muslims. She has the confidence that she will be able to bring all dominant caste together. In this scenario, it would be a mistake to dismiss Mayawati in this election.
(The writer is Political Editor, The Pioneer, Lucknow edition. The views expressed are personal.)