Mayawati's BSP only alternative to Yogi Adityanath government in UP?

On Sunday when Mayawati promised to build a taller Sri Parshuram temple than one promised by Samajwadi Party, the BSP supremo was trying to recreate the magic social coalition of 2007, which had propelled her party to power with a single-party majority when two caste groups from the contrarian poles---—Brahmins and Dalits came together, changing the political discourse for some time.

Down in the dumps since last years, having lost two state polls-- to SP in 2012 and BJP in 2017 having won zero in 2014 and only 10 (when she allied with SP) of 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BSP is keen to douse the fire in the backyard and pulling out all stops to revive the party, assiduously built by her mentor Kanshi Ram.

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But the BSP, whose vote had remained static around 20 per cent in last few years, has to take on BJP which got nearly 50 per cent votes in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

BSP knows it well and hence it is working on the fault-lines—seeking to consolidate its Dalit vote base by wooing back non Jatav Dalits, large chunks of which drifted towards the BJP, aggressively woo the Brahmins, sections of whom seem somewhat cut up the Yogi Adityanath-led government in UP with the old Thakur-Brahmin rivalry coming to fore and being fomented by opposition parties.

In 2017 UP assembly polls, the BSP fielded 97 BSP Muslim including in Faizabad, the seat of Ram temple movement, which she said, “no other party can do” and accused the Congress of being diffident in giving tickets to Muslims.

BSP’s hope is on the consolidation of Brahmin (9 per cent), Muslims (19 per cent) and Dalits (21 per cent) but Shaibal Gupta, social scientist, Founder Member-Secretary of Asian Development Research Institute, feels otherwise. “It is difficult to create any new social coalition now. Brahmins may be a bit unhappy with BJP for the time being but have been voting for the saffron party for long. Their earlier preferred destination was Congress. They are an aspirational group. There is a doubt that will vote en bloc for any party now. Actually, no party can now be sure of getting 100 per cent vote of any community.”

In 2007 when Mayawati’s party coined the slogan “Brahman shankh bajaayega, haathi aage jaayega (the Brahmin will blow the conch and the elephant will march forward)”, it was a radical shift from BSP’s 1989 slogan of Tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maro joote char (Hit the Brahmins, Thakurs, and Banias with shoes) or its 1996’s Brahmin, thakur, bania chhor, baaki sub hain DS 4 (Barring the Brahmins, Thakurs, Banis everyone is DS4 -- Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti, an umbrella organisation of oppressed castes). By 2009, BSP had moved from ‘Bahujan’ to ‘Sarvajan politics’ but it continued to decline electorally post 2012.

Mayawati, who is not a member of any House of Parliament, after having resigned from Rajya Sabha in July 2017 is totally focussed on her party’s revival in UP as she has this bitter realisation that when BSP is out of power in UP, its electoral performances suffer badly in other states as well, a fact proved in 2018 state polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, 2019 state polls in Haryana and Maharashtra and 2020 state polls in Delhi and Jharkhand.

With SP having failed twice in 2017 polls when it allied with Congress, and in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when it allied with BSP and got only half of the number of seats won by (BSP won 10 and SP-05), BSP is now seeking to give the message that only it could be the alternative to the Yogi Adityanath led BJP in the state. A task difficult given the divided nature of polity in the state,