Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), a Dalit-centric party that had a Brahmin as its most visible face in the 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, has come up with its worst ever performance and not quite unexpectedly either. With Mayawati making a very restricted appearance in the election campaign, it was left to BSP MP Satish Chandra Mishra, a Brahmin, to carry the campaign on his shoulders.
Kanshi Ram, who had founded the BSP in 1984, had formed it to represent Bahujan — referring to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (OBC), along with religious minorities. After 2012, Mayawati gradually promoted Mishra as the new face of the party and expelled or marginalized all Dalit leaders in the party.
The BSP now has no second rung leadership and even Jatavs, who had stood behind Mayawati during all her politically turbulent years, now seem to have deserted her.
Mayawati’s sub-caste, the Jatavs, have a 14% share of the scheduled caste population. The BSP has received only 12.9% of the vote, indicating that even Jatavs may have abandoned the party. The BSP could win only one seat in the state. This indicates that the party has lost nearly 10% of its vote share. In 2017, the BSP received 22.2% of the vote and 19 seats.
A former BSP MLA told IANS, “The party is on its way to complete disintegration. The signals were clear when the party moved away from Kanshi Ram’s ideology and began promoting Brahmin leaders – the same community that Kanshi Ram had warned us against. Mayawati has now started promoting her family in politics and this also goes against Kanshi Ram’s ideology. This is probably the BSP’s last election. The elephant has outlived its utility.”
Political pandits, meanwhile, say that the BSP’s conflicting stand during the campaign has almost eradicated it from the political centre stage in Uttar Pradesh.
“She repeatedly issued statements that seemed supportive of the BJP and Amit Shah reciprocated when he testified BSP’s relevance in UP politics. Naturally, the anti-BJP vote moved away from BSP because they sensed a post poll alliance with the BJP. Moreover, the absence of Dalit leadership in the party made the Dalits search for greener pastures. Some went with BJP and some with SP,” senior political analyst Prof RK Dixit told IANS.
After the party’s dismal results, Mayawati said it was ‘rumours’ of the BSP being BJP’s ‘Team B’ that had resulted in Muslim voters choosing the Samajwadi party, instead. However, before the elections, the BSP chief had resonated with BJP statements.
Incidentally, most of the former BSP leaders have contested these elections on a SP ticket and with them, they have taken their own supporters. The BSP will now have negligible presence in the state assembly and will be in no position to support or oppose the ruling BJP, experts.
Mayawati has already burnt bridges with the Congress and Samajwadi Party, with whom she had allied in 2019, and for the time being at least, the party is almost over for Mayawati.
Sources within the party, meanwhile, told IANS that the party president is no longer interested in electoral politics and is eyeing the post of President of India.
However, Mayawati said the results were a ‘lesson for us’. “UP election results are opposed to BSP’s expectations. We should not be discouraged by it. Instead, we should learn from it, introspect and carry forward our party movement, and come back to power,” Mayawati said.
BSP chief Mayawati, while addressing a press conference on Friday, urged party workers to not feel discouraged and promised a comeback in the future. Mayawati said that the party is going through a tough time, just like the BJP had gone through earlier.
With inputs from News18
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