Maya refrains from 'experimenting'

With her arch rivals Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi breathing down her neck, BSP supremo Mayawati has refrained from doing any experiment in Uttar Pradesh and has relied on her tested ‘social engineering’ formula to regain lost grounds in the state.

Brahmins and Dalits grabbed almost half of the nominations from the state, that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. “We have given representation to every caste. Nominations have been decided keeping in view the preparations of the candidates,” Mayawati said on Thursday.

The BSP has fielded 21 Brahmins and 17 candidates from the Scheduled Caste (SC). There are 18 Muslims in the list while Thakur candidates have been fielded from eight constituencies.

 Seven women have also made it to the BSP list. Fifteen nominees were from the backward castes.

Though the BSP supremo said her party believed in the ideology of ‘sarvjan hitay, sarvjan sukhay’ (for the benefit of all), the list made it clear that she had once again reposed faith in the old and tested ‘social engineering’ formula to reap rich electoral dividends in the state.

“There was no room for making any experiment...we cannot take any chance in UP, which is so very important to us,” said a senior BSP leader here while speaking to Deccan Herald.

It was ‘social engineering’ that had catapulted the BSP to power in 2007 Assembly polls in the state. After the debacle in the 2012 Assembly elections, Mayawati had given the new sloan of ‘sarvajan hitay, sarvajan sukhay’.

The strategy envisaged fielding Brahmin candidates from seats where Dalits were in sizable numbers. The party hoped that the Dalits would vote for the BSP along with the upper caste Brahmins leading to the victory of the party candidate.

Contrary to the expectations, Mayawati refused to be drawn into any kind of ‘electoral confrontation’ with Modi, who is contesting from Varanasi and Mulayam, who is also contesting from Azamgarh besides Mainpuri seat.

She alleged that Modi and Mulayam had a “tacit understanding” and they wanted to give a “communal colour” to the politics in eastern UP and appealed to the people to “carefully exercise their franchise”.