BSP supremo Mayawati has always preferred to maintain a reasonable distance from the bogey of so-called ‘opposition unity’.
Mayawati’s decision to go solo in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan assembly elections has thrown cold water on opposition’s grand alliance plan. Adding salt to the injury, the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo called the Congress “arrogant” and accused it of “backstabbing”. This jolt comes right after Mayawati announced an alliance with Ajit Jogi in Chhattisgarh.
Everyone in the opposition has been cajoling Mayawati since July last year when she resigned from the Rajya Sabha for “not being allowed to speak” on atrocities against Dalits.
RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav organised a joint opposition rally on 27 August in Patna, a month after that. He personally called everyone, from Mamata Banerjee and Sonia Gandhi to Mayawati. Everyone turned up – the Congress was represented by senior leaders C.P. Joshi and Ghulam Nabi Azad – except Mayawati. Her reason for declining the invite was that until a seat-sharing arrangement was reached, she would not share stage with any opposition leader. At that time, Lalu Yadav was even ready to offer her a Rajya Sabha seat from Bihar, but she refused the proposal.
Mayawati has always preferred to maintain a reasonable distance from the bogey of so-called ‘opposition unity’. Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Satish Chandra Misra, however, did participate in the meetings called by the opposition leaders in Delhi as a symbolic gesture, without making any commitment.
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The only sign of a possible tie-up from her side came when she supported Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates in the by-elections in Gorakhpur and Phulpur in March this year. Even there, the proposal to project her as the joint opposition candidate from Phulpur didn’t meet any success. Finally, the SP contested both seats and won, and Akhilesh Yadav personally went to thank Mayawati for her support.
For most opposition parties, just the thought of Mayawati and Akhilesh coming together meant the grand alliance of their dreams was just few yards away.
In March this year, she got all-round support for her Rajya Sabha candidate Bhimrao Ambedkar. Akhilesh Yadav did everything to ensure Ambedkar’s victory as a return gift to his Bua. All the seven Congress MLAs voted for the BSP. No one wanted to jeopardise the possibility of a grand alliance. But Ambedkar lost the election to the BJP. The lone RLD MLA who didn’t vote for the BSP was expelled from the party. Later in April, Ambedkar filed his nomination for an MLC seat and was elected unopposed with the SP and the Congress’ support.
But Mayawati kept reiterating that without respectable number of seats, it was not possible for the BSP to be part of any alliance.
In response, Akhilesh Yadav maintained that he was willing to sacrifice for the larger good. In Bihar, where the BSP has negligible presence, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav was said to be willing to accommodate Mayawati’s party in the interest of a grand alliance against the BJP. When all this was going on, Mayawati went and tied up with the JD(S) in Karnataka and the INLD in Haryana.
In the current scenario, the grand alliance has hit a road block ahead of the crucial elections in the Hindi-belt states. This is despite the fact that the opposition has always been willing to give enough space to the BSP.
Opposition party leaders are openly saying that they are willing to compromise on their ambitions for the larger goal of defeating the BJP. It is Mayawati who seems to be insisting on ‘respectable seats’ instead of unity. She has never made any attempt to reach out to any party to show her commitment to the grand alliance.
Also read: This is why Mayawati’s BSP is such a valuable political ally
The only time she did demonstrate her leaning was when she removed the BSP national coordinator in July for criticising Rahul Gandhi. But this single act of support was a just a mirage for all those who were restless to enlist her in their fight against Modi.
On 10 September, when Congress called a Bharat Bandh, the BSP didn’t openly extend support to it. Further, Mayawati blamed the Congress along with the BJP for rising fuel prices.
It is all about I, me and myself for Mayawati who has been out of power since 2012, when she lost the assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. She needs more than 40 seats to claim the PM post in the opposition alliance. If she could contest half of the 80 seats in UP, she might end up with around 30 seats, which is less than her ambitious target. For that, she wants the Congress to give her seats in other states. In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, her party has a vote share of 6.29 per cent and 3.37 per cent respectively as per the 2013 assembly elections data.
The road ahead for BSP
The elephant’s charisma was last on full display when the BSP won 2007 assembly election with considerable support from Dalits, Brahmins and a section of minorities. Since then, her party has been on the decline. From 206 seats in 2007, the BSP tally fell to 80 seats in 2012. The party’s vote share in Uttar Pradesh went down to nearly 26 per cent in 2012 assembly election and nearly 20 per cent in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In 2017 assembly election, the BSP got 22 per cent of the total votes, but won only 19 seats.
Also read: What exactly is Mayawati up to
New-gen Dalit leaders from Jignesh Mevani to Bhim Army’s Chandrashekhar Azad have added to the bouquet of options available to Dalits. In Kairana bypolls, where the BSP didn’t announce support to the joint opposition candidate, Azad’s Bhim Army worked tirelessly to get Dalits to vote for the SP-RLD candidate. On the other hand, the BJP, in 2014 and 2017, has successfully divided her Dalit vote bank.
In the current scenario, there are only two categories of voters for the 2019 general elections, those who want to elect Modi again and who want to vote him out. No leader – Mayawati, Akhilesh, Mamata or Rahul Gandhi – can think it is about him or her.