A summer of survival it is for the irrepressible Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
A little over a year ago, the BSP had won just one Assembly seat and seen its vote share shrink to 12.88%, down from the 19.48% the party secured in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. That Lok Sabha election five years ago was one in which the BSP won ten seats while being in an alliance with the Samajwadi Party. This election should prove way toughter as they are going it alone.
Mayawati probably has a reason to do so. She has going by the names of the candidates announced so far resorted to some deft social engineering and that gamble may not have been possible if the BSP was part of any alliance.
These bold experiments seem to be stemming from a lot of quiet and serious analysis. Since the party has a trustworthy vote bank among the Dalits, its intention clearly is to woo the Muslims and upper castes wherever possible in the hope of springing surprises. This strategy may hurt both the NDA and INDIA blocs, but is to the BSP's advantage.
The list till now and the message from it
Till date, the party has declared 36 candidates for the 80 seats in the state, and despite the murmurs of there being a focus on Muslims in the first list, the composition as of now shows a clever pattern of strategic choices.
Regardless of the common belief that BSP will favour a Dalit-Muslim combination, it appears that Brahmins have been given top priority as far as numbers are concerned.
There are 11 Brahmins and other general castes, 10 Dalits, nine Muslims and six OBCs in the list so far. It is clear that rather than going in for a predictable strategy of naming any caste-community bloc, the party has taken care to pick a suitable candidate keeping in mind the constituency’s demographics.
A few things stand out from the BSP names announced so far:
· The party does not want to portray themselves as being a Dalit-only outfit.
· It is not shying away from hosting Muslims in key places, unlike the Samajwadi Party.
· Sensing the mood of upper castes, Brahmins are once again in the BSP’s favoured list, unlike in the BJP, which is now being increasingly perceived as an OBC-dominated group.
· The BSP aims to dent the prospects of both the BJP and the SP-Congress alliance.
Key names including the one fighting the original Dream Girl
Some key names give an idea of what the party could have in mind.
The BSP has fielded Sarwar Malik, an old loyalist, from Lucknow, where Union Minister Rajnath Singh and SP MLA Ravidas Mehrotra are the other candidates. Regardless of whether he wins or not, Malik may appeal to Muslim voters who have been traditionally voting for BJP in the state capital. Malik being named by the BSP also elicited a prompt decision by the SP which named Fakhir Siddiqi as the Lucknow party president.
In western UP, the BSP has posed a challenge to the Rashtriya Lok Dal (now a partner of BJP) in Bijnore by putting up a Jat candidate Chaudhary Vijendra Singh against RLD's Chandan Singh Chauhan, a Gujar. This may divide Jat votes considered loyal to RLD.
Jat politics also sees a play in Mathura where BJP’s Hema Malini, the original Dream Girl, is seeking a third term. BSP has named Suresh Singh, a Jat and former central services officer who had a long association with the BJP and joined the BSP in 2019.
The BSP's moves in Aligarh, Ghaziabad and Lakhimpur Kheri are indicative of a clever strategy of appealing to particular caste groups.
Making last-minute changes, Hitendra Kumar alias Bunty Upadhyay (till recently with BJP) was named from Aligarh, whereas the previous BSP nominee was Gufran Noor, formerly with AIMIM.
In Ghaziabad, a last-minute change saw Nandkishore Pundir, a Thakur candidate disgruntled with the BJP being name as BSP nominee, whereas the earlier candidate Anshay Kalra, a Punjabi real estate businessman from Kaushambi, was shifted to Kheri, which has a strong Punjabi and Sikh population.
In Kannauj, for long a Samajwadi Party stronghold, the party has fielded a Muslim Imran Jafar.
Brahmins have also been put up in Unnao and Mirzapur.
When the BSP had allies
The BSP had allied with the SP twice -- once in 1993, and then in 2017. Its alliance with BJP saw Mayawati become Chief Minister thrice.
Since 2007, the party has failed to get good results in any election in UP, despite having run through all combinations.
For example, in the 2023 Urban Local Bodies election, it had put up 11 Muslims for 17 Mayoral posts, but all of them lost.
In the 2022 Assembly election, it had put up 89 Muslims, ensuring the defeat of the SP in many places.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, it had allied with the SP and the combo won 15 seats - 10 for BSP and 5 for SP.
The 2017 Assembly election saw SP and Congress contesting as an alliance, but winning only 54 seats, while BSP had to be content with 19.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha electio, BSP failed to win any seat.
It was in the 2007 Assembly election that the BSP had come to power in the state with a full majority, winning 206 seats.
The new bet
Despite the 2019 Lok Sabha election showing, allying with the SP has not been particularly advantageous for the BSP and there have been no long-term benefits. This may have been the reason why despite many overtures from the SP for a possible tie-up, Mayawati stood her ground.
It now appears that she is instead betting on the new social engineering formula to get favourable results.
It is also noteworthy that Mayawati has announced her nephew Akash Anand as her political successor. Naturally, she will want to hand over the party to him with a healthy vote share and at least a few seats to show. Hence, the extra effort in candidate selection.
The announcement of names for rest of the seats in UP will reveal more facets behind her strategy.
