Maya’s patchwork politics

Says a BSP source, “The party threw away the opportunity to make a grand display of its projected strength for the assembly polls, as the BSP is expected to cash in on the anti-incumbency vote. If the state is reeling under a law and order crisis, everyone is looking to Mayawati to bring an end to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s rule. Instead, other minor contenders like the BJP and Congress are making victory speeches after the civic poll results. They reaped the benefit of BSP’s absence.’’

According to political pundits, the two national parties walked away with the anti-Samajwadi Party (SP) vote (though the SP-led coalition did well in the urban areas) that would have gone to the BSP. Mayawati had gambled that by backing candidates who would contest as Independents, she would keep intra party fights at bay.

Then, in a fit of pique and regret Mayawati announced that the Congress and BJP had won because she had asked her party to work against the SP and ensure that the votes were transferred to the Congress and BJP. If this was not enough to stir up fears about a possible BSP-BJP tie-up again, Mayawati declared that dalits in many constituencies had voted BJP as they were fed up of Muslim fundamentalism. “They are fed up of the Muslim community ‘preference’ for fundamentalist leaders,’’ she said.

Within hours of making that statement, her detractors whipped up anti-BSP sentiments within the Muslim community, and the state erupted in demonstrations and protests. If Mayawati deliberately made this statement to woo the Brahmins, it was an ashen BSP president who received reports of her effigies being burned at several district headquarters.

In one stroke, Mayawati not only threatened to push the Muslim community back into the SP fold (her political rivals did not waste time in telling the community she had secretly tied up with the BJP; they also reminded them about her campaign for Gujarat CM Narendra Modi), her strategy to bring dalits and brahmins together also began to flounder as the upper castes saw a glimmer of hope in their natural party, the BJP.

So, with barely three months left for the state polls, it is going to be a crucial test for the BSP leader, who will be fighting the polls for the first time without her mentor, the late Kanshi Ram. Mayawati is going full steam ahead despite the earlier bungling. For starters, she has almost completed the arduous task of finalising candidates for the 403-member House. Two, in her endeavour to consolidate the Dalit-Brahmin vote, Mayawati will give almost one-third of the seats to upper-castes this time, say party sources. She is also expected to give a generous number of seats to Muslim candidates to make up for her earlier gaffes.

Mayawati is also on a spree of wooing the More Backward Castes (MBCs). She has already begun wooing the urban voters with a big vaish (trader) sammelan on December 28, in Lucknow. “The idea is to woo the community who are the biggest victims of the kidnapping and extortion racket in the state,’’ says a BSP member. Perhaps the BSP chief can make yet another start towards a political comeback on her birthday next week.