Acts of sabotage

Consistency and reliability are not the virtues Bahujan Samaj Party chief Kanshi Ram can be accused of by his friends or foes. His muscle-f...

Consistency and reliability are not the virtues Bahujan Samaj Party chief Kanshi Ram can be accused of by his friends or foes. His muscle-flexing barely a month before the `transfer of power’ in Uttar Pradesh is intended to prepare the ground for fresh political bargaining.

This despite the fact that Kanshi Ram and Mayawati have been claiming that they will implement the BSP-BJP pact whereby she will hand over power to a BJP nominee after the six-month period is over. The BJP leadership, which had even toyed with the idea of letting Mayawati continue to ensure longevity of the alliance, would also like to believe that the BSP would honour its promise. Why else would the BJP have tolerated a systematic dwarfing of its agenda by a coalition in which it was the major partner? It was not a `ladies first’-type of chivalry which made the BJP gift the first six-month stint of chief ministership to Mayawati despite having almost thrice the BSP’s strength in the State Assembly.

Their shared hatred of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had brought the BJP and the BSP together again, despite the unsavoury memories of their 1994 experiment. Now they can do little except hope and pray that their seemingly unnatural marriage will last at least till the next Lok Sabha elections.

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The BJP will be back to square one if Kanshi Ram decides to call it a day and part company with it. The BSP supremo’s refusal to expand the alliance outside Uttar Pradesh has thrown a spanner in the BJP’s gameplan to rule the nation from Raisina Hill. Now that Mayawati has succeeded in imposing her Ambedkarite agenda on Uttar Pradesh, the Hindutva party will find itself in a no-win situation even if the BSP lives up to its word and hands over power on September 21. In any case, the BJP’s upper caste support base was getting disenchanted with the party due to its inability to stop the undeclared caste war unleashed by Mayawati through selective use of the controversial Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and erection of Ambedkar statues in every nook and cranny of the State. Any attempt to reverse the gear by the BJP when its nominee succeeds her is bound to put an end to its dream of luring Dalits into its fold.

Doubts about the workability of the time-sharing system of governance envisaged by the BJP-BSP pact had been expressed from day one. The first phase of its implementation under the Mayawati regime has also belied hopes that the BJP-BSP Government will end the political instability and restore some semblance of law and order in a state which was heading towards anarchy. Mayawati’s rhetorical claims notwithstanding, there has been little improvement on the law and order front, so much so that the AK-47 culture is now a fact of life even in the State Capital. The Allahabad High Court has gone on record that in the name of restoring law and order, the transfers and postings industry has been flourishing, deepening instability and anarchy in the state. The BJP’s plea that it is merely a sleeping partner in the government will find few takers, especially when Mulayam Singh Yadav has been systematically wooing the upper castes with some measure of success. Needless to say, the BJP’s loss will be the Samajwadi Party’s gain.