LUCKNOW: A few days back, while campaigning in Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad, Aligarh and Unnao, Union Home Minister Amit Shah jibed at BSP chief Mayawati: "Behenji (Mayawati) is yet to come out of the cold. Elections are around the corner and she has not come out for campaign. It seems Bahanji is already afraid."
The BSP chief retorted by saying the BSP has its own style of functioning and it does not want to "copy" others. The exchange highlighted the former CM's discomfiture at a time when principal contenders to Uttar Pradesh's power are firing on all cylinders.
Take a look at how they are straining their every nerve: Yogi Adityanath and the entire top saffron leadership is busy shoring up the party prospects, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is taking out his Vijay Rath Yatra criss-crossing the state and Priyanka is focusing on her ‘ladki hoon lad sakti hoon (I am a girl, I can fight)’ campaign.
Where’s Bahujan Samaj Party? The fact is Mayawati is yet to step out to take her party’s poll campaign forward. She seems to be missing in action. BSP leaders, however, assert they believe in door-to-door contact as the most effective means to mobilising the voters during the election.
"This is better than splurging on holding big rallies," said a BSP leader. Except for some pressers in Lucknow, Mayawati hasn't done much so far. "She will be stepping out soon," says her supporter.
A top BSP leader said the party was focusing on all reserved seats at present. "SC Mishra ji (party general secretary) is heading the party campaign district-wise. As soon as the schedule of the programme is over, behen ji (Mayawati) will step out. However, she is in touch with zonal coordinators and party workers," said a senior BSP leader.
Analysts believe that Mayawati is confident of her dedicated voter-base. She is focusing mainly on re-stitching the social engineering formula around Dalit-Brahmin combination that had brought her to power with 206 seats in 2007.
Since then, however, the party's vote share has been dwindling from 30 per cent in 2007 to 25 per cent in 2012 and 22 per cent in 2017 Assembly elections. "The gradual decline of the BSP has made the UP fight more of a straight one, between the BJP and the SP with most BSP faces turning to the SP," says Prof AK Mishra, a political analyst.
In the 2017 polls, when the opposition stood decimated, the BSP won only 19 seats out of 403, registering a massive decline from 80 seats in 2012.
Even in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party failed to impress the voters - in 2014, it could not open its account while in 2019, with its 'grand alliance' with the Samajwadi Party in place, the BSP could win only 10 seats.
The upcoming Assembly election appears to be more difficult for Mayawati as many of her close aides have left the BSP camp.
The party's decline is largely attributed to the exodus of its bigwigs in the last couple of years. Those who left the party for greener pastures accuse her of having lost touch with the masses. Many of them cry foul over the way money was demanded for party funds at the instance of the party chief.
Mayawati, who has been a four-time Uttar Pradesh chief minister, suddenly seems to be incapable of giving even a semblance of a fight to her rivals. The party lost the Jalalpur seat in Ambedkarnagar by-election and its number in the Assembly came down to 18 in 2019. Out of them, eight have joined SP in the last few months. The rest also followed suit recently.
Ironically, many leaders who were associated with the party since its birth were expelled in June 2021 for "anti-party activities". The party with 19 MLAs is now left with just three in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
