As SP washes dirty linen, BSP eyes victory

In the run-up to the 2017 Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly election, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is miles ahead of its main opponents – the Samajwadi Party (SP), BJP and the Congress. In terms of choice of chief ministerial candidate, finalisation and distribution of tickets, organisational preparedness and agenda for election, the BSP is light years  ahead of its opponents.

As part of the social justice agenda, party supremo Mayawati is asserting that she is the only administrator capable of maintaining strict law and order and a tight leash on communal conflicts. It is true that no big communal riots broke out in the state during her four regimes. To tap the floating voters, Mayawati silenced her critics by pledging that she would not build any parks, statues and monuments. For youths she announced that instead of distributing laptops and tabs as promised by the SP, she will give them cash, so that they can buy what they need.

 In spite of its strength, the BSP chief issued a double-edged statement on the rumblings in the SP. On the one hand she posed that she doesn’t care about happenings in the SP and dubbed it as “family dramebaaji”. On the other hand, she exposed the vulnerability of SP’s leadership and its anti-incumbency. Mayawati said: “A struggle for supremacy is going on in the party and the parivar. (SP patriarch)  Mulayam Singh Yadav has orchestrated this drama to save his son from the humiliation of a certain defeat. Though Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is in-charge of distribution of tickets, Mulayam has nominated his brother Shivpal Yadav as the party’s chief when the polls are just round the corner.”

Through this family drama, Mulayam also wants to divert people’s attention from the miserable law and order situation, which has already tarnished Akhilesh’s image beyond repair, she added.

 In her well-attended rallies, Mayawati repeatedly launched a scathing attack that there is a tacit understanding between the SP and the BJP. She pointed out that the state unit of the BJP makes a farcical hue and cry of breakdown of law and order and anarchy in the state. She says the BJP doesn’t demand imposition of President’s rule, though their party is in power at the Centre.

Organisational strength

Indeed, the political scenario in UP has given the BSP an advantage not only because it enjoys the benefit of the anti-incumbency factor against the SP, but also because of the prevailing political uncertainty among the opponents. For instance, no party has finalised candidates for the polls. Even today, parties are admitting members who were till yesterday in other political outfits, probably the reason why Mayawati took a dig at the BJP in a recent rally to prove that the saffron outfit was weak, at the organisational level. She said, “...they (BJP) are now relying on the rejected material of the BSP.” Also, the BJP had organised Buddhist yatras which ended up as an embarrassment for the party.

The BSP has further exposed the organisational weaknesses of the SP and the Congress by organising huge rallies in Agra and Saharanpur (western UP), Azamgarh (eastern UP) Allahabad and Lucknow (central UP; Lucknow rally is scheduled for October 9 on death anniversary of BSP founder Kanshi Ram). Through these rallies, the BSP wants to show that Mayawati has huge organisational strength in different regions of UP, unlike her rivals. Mayawati claims, to counter this, the Congress and the SP have planned road shows and bus yatras.

Though there is a favourable political milieu for the BSP, it has a few challenges too. One, it has to win over the Muslims who feel alienated with the SP, but are not enthusiastically oriented towards the BSP. The party has taken a few steps to woo them but the question is, are they enough? The BSP has been raising vociferously the issue of cow slaughter, ghar vapsi, conversion etc. The party has also distributed more than a hundred tickets to the minorities. In the same vein, to avoid a fresh wedge between Dalit and Muslims, the BSP did not react to minister Azam Khan’s obnoxious statement against Ambedkar.

However, the BSP’s minority sympathisers say that this is not enough. For mobilising minorities, the BSP has to give its Muslim leadership greater visibility. It needs to establish a rapport with Muslim educational institutions like the Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, Aligarh Muslim University, Darul Uloom Deoband etc.

(The writer is Professor of Sociology, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)