JOIN USFear of a backlash amongst their respective votebanks in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections has made BSP supremo Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to adopt diametrically opposite stance on the issue of SC/ST quota in promotion.
Mulayam wants to protect his backward class vote bank and make inroads into the upper caste votes that had usually backed the Congress and the BJP, while Mayawati is equally desperate to keep her dalit vote bank to remain a force in the state politics and have a say at the Centre post 2014 elections.
“He wants to isolate Mayawati,” said an SP leader here. In the recent Assembly polls, the upper castes were made to feel isolated as major political parties wooed the Muslims, Dalits and the backward communities, despite the fact that the Brahmins, Thakurs, Vaishyas and Kayasthas form one fourth of the votes in the state.
The upper caste votes were fragmented in the previous elections.
Roughly eight per cent of the Brahmin votes were divided between the BJP and Congress; while the nine per cent Thakur votes were taken by the BJP and SP. SP leaders say that the party has almost no following amongst Brahmins, Vaishyas and Kayasthas.
“It is not proper to crush one section of the population to protect another section...the upper caste members have always been on the receiving end in every social revolution,” says Shailendra Dubey, a leader of the ‘Lok Karmchari Morcha', a confederation of the state government employees.
Political analysts feel that with the polarization of dalit, backward class and Muslims, the upper cast may play a crucial role in the next elections.