JOIN USUP debacle forces Mayawati to shun 'sarvajan' and return to 'bahujan' politics
With her dream of coming back to power in Uttar Pradesh through her carefully nurtured 'social engineering' formula, which focused on bringing 'Brahmin-Dalits-Muslims' together, suffering a serious setback in the recently concluded Assembly polls in the state, BSP supremo Mayawati has now signaled a return to 'bahujan' (Dalit) politics shunning the 'sarvajan' (all sections of the society) slogan.
As the veteran leader's party could manage to win only one seat, Mayawati apparently is feeling threatened by the desertion of Dalits, her core vote bank.
Mayawati, almost immediately after the results of the state Assembly polls were declared, removed Ritesh Pandey, who was the leader of the BSP group in the Lok Sabha, and replaced him with Girish Chandra Jatav, who hailed from the same sub-caste of dalits to which the BSP supremo herself belonged.
According to the sources in the BSP, the leaders from the Jatav community would also be appointed to key posts in the party in the state. "If needed, the leaders from the other communities would be removed and replaced by Jatav community leaders," said a senior BSP leader.
Interestingly, it was her "social engineering" formula which had catapulted her party to power in the state in 2007 Assembly polls when the BSP had alone emerged victorious on 206 seats. Mayawati had then fielded a large number of Brahmin candidates in the elections and many of them, including Ramveer Upadhyaya and Nakul Dubey, had won the polls and were ministers in the state Cabinet.
In 2012, however, the BSP lost the polls to Samajwadi Party (SP) but it remained the main opposition party with 80 seats and 25 per cent vote share. Five years later, the BSP's tally of seats declined sharply to 19 and its vote share came down to 21 per cent.
In the recent Assembly polls again Mayawati tried her tested social engineering formula and gave tickets to many Brahmin candidates but her party was wiped out in the polls and could win only one seat. Its vote share also declined sharply to 12 per cent.
Although Mayawati sought to attribute her party's dismal performance to what she said 'shift' of the Muslim votes to the SP, sources in the party said that the poor show was the result of desertion of the dalit voters . The analysis of the results also revealed that a section of the 'Jatavs', considered to be the core voters of the BSP, may have supported the BJP in the polls which was reflected in the increased vote percentage of the BJP.
''We need to return to the Dalit agenda, else we may face mass desertion of our core voters in the next elections,'' the BSP leader remarked.
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