Lucknow: As he unveiled the bust of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli Monday, Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav invoked an old alliance between his father Mulayam Singh and the Dalit icon.
“Kanshi Ramji fought several times from Chhattisgarh, Allahabad, etc. but could not win despite coming close to victory,” he said at the event in Mahamaya Nagar. “However, he won for the first time from Etawah with the help of Samajwadis and that marked a new beginning in UP’s politics, when he was chosen as a parliamentarian from here”.
The SP chief was referring to the General Election of 1991 when an understanding with socialist leader Mulayam helped Kanshi Ram score a victory in Etawah. That win, coming as it did in the middle of mandir politics, helped jettison the Dalit leader and BSP founder into the Uttar Pradesh political scene.
At the same event, Akhilesh also targeted the BSP (founded in 1984) for having an understanding with the BJP and asked people to be “beware of those helping the BJP indirectly”.
“The public is becoming aware of the BJP’s untruths ahead of the Lok Sabha polls,” the SP chief said at the event. “A change will come about in 2024 (general election) and 2027 (UP assembly polls).”
Monday’s development, coming just over a year before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, is significant, especially seen in light of SP’s larger Dalit outreach.
Dalits constitute around 20 per cent of the state’s total population. Nearly half of this is Jatavs, the group to which the current BSP chief, Mayawati, belongs, and which form her party’s core vote bank. The rest is made up of several caste groups such as Pasis, Koeris, Valmikis, and Khatiks.
With the BSP vote share slumping to 12.8 per cent in the 2022 assembly polls — its lowest since 1993 — it’s this non-Jatav section that Yadav is targeting, SP’s chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told ThePrint. He added that Monday’s event had been organised by former BSP leaders who had switched over to the SP.
Chief among them is Swami Prasad Maurya, a former BSP leader who quit the party in 2016 to join the BJP, only to leave it in 2022 ahead of the assembly polls to join the SP. Yadav also unveiled a bust of Swami Prasad’s father, Badlu Maurya, for his contributions to education in the area.
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Reminder of past alliances
Speaking at the event Monday, Akhilesh said the BSP’s allegations that the SP was trying to break up the bahujans were untrue and that their fight for social justice was an old one.
An understanding had existed between Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1991 when the former was beginning to dabble in UP politics, he said.
The BJP, which was riding high on the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, had won 221 of the state’s 425 seats that year. But it was this understanding between the SP and BSP leaders that had helped Kanshi Ram beat his nearest rival, BJP’s Lal Singh Verma, even inspiring the popular slogan: “Mile Mulayam-Kanshi Ram, hava mein ud gaye Jaishreeram (when Mulayam and Kanshi Ram come together, BJP gets trounced)”.
Invoking the 2017 assembly polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha election, when the SP and BSP had entered into a formal alliance, Akhilesh said the SP had tried to ensure participation of the backward castes which is why they had partnered with the Congress first and then with the BSP.
“We did many experiments. We joined hands with the Congress and then with the BSP, too. As a result, those people (the BSP) reached from 0 to 10 (in Lok Sabha seats). But now, number 1 leaders of BSP have joined us. Jab 10 me 1 ko nikaal denge, to vo (BSP) hawa me udh jayenge…(When you remove 1 from 10, they will stand nowhere),” he said.
SP’s Dalit outreach
The last few years have seen the SP make several attempts to woo the state’s Dalit vote bank. Ahead of the bypolls in Khatauli and Rampur in December, Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party (ASP) had extended its support to the SP-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance.
Addressing a rally in Raebareli on 15 February, 2022 — just ahead of the UP assembly polls — SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said: “Don’t fall into the trap of other parties. There are parties that will be unable to open their accounts. The BSP has strayed from the path shown by Ambedkarwadis. They will be unable to form the government. Congress will also be unable to form the government. So, don’t make a mistake and help the cycle (SP symbol)”.
He had also hinted at the SP’s strategy at the party’s national convention held last September, when he said “Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia” should join forces and that “the Bahujan Samaj (Dalits) is joining Samajwadis in large numbers”, according to Hindustan Times.
Speaking to ThePrint, SP spokesperson Chaudhary admitted the party was wooing non-Jatav Dalits.
“A lot of people from BSP who were ministers in the Mayawati government have joined the SP,” Chaudhary said. “In Dalit community too, there are several factions. Half of the vote is with Mayawati, from the community she belongs to. But the other half has groups like the Pasis. We have so many Pasi leaders,” he said.
This is an updated version of the report.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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