Uttar Pradesh election 2022: Mayawati bid to recreate BSP magic in Bundelkhand

Uttar Pradesh election 2022: Mayawati bid to recreate BSP magic in Bundelkhand

S Kamran HusainUpdated: Friday, February 18, 2022, 09:18 AM IST
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Mayawati | PTI

Once a force to reckon with in the Bundelkhand region, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is seeking rekindle its fortunes after the severe drubbing it received in the 2017 assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

“The ‘mahaul’ (mood) here is certainly in favour of ‘Behenji’ (as BSP supremo Mayawati is referred to by her supporters),’’ says CS Bundela, the party candidate from Lalitpur.

The rallying point, confides Bundela, is a whisper campaign launched by the party that if the BJP gets a brute majority in assembly elections too, it may rewrite the Constitution drafted by Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar and deprive them of benefits guaranteed under it.

Consequently, the party, which professes to be the ‘Messiah of the Dalits’, has adopted a tactical approach in its selection of candidates and is locked in several triangular contests, known in local parlance as a phase of Dalit ‘Janmat’.

“Mayawati needs no big rallies to mobilise its core voters – the Jatavs -- among the Dalits. But big rallies do help build traction among other Dalit castes like Pasis, Dhobis, Koris etc and also attract non-Dalit castes,” feels Professor Badri Narayan, political analyst and an eminent social scientist. Jatavs are a numerically strong Dalit community and constitute around 10-12 per cent of the state’s population.

Dalits, together, constitute an estimated 21.6 per cent of the state’s population. In other words, Jatavs are everywhere in UP, in almost every district and every constituency.

But, in 2017, the BJP, for the first time, made a clean sweep by bagging all 19 out of 19 seats in seven districts in Bundelkhand. The districts include Jhansi, Lalitpur, Jalaun, Hamirpur, Banda, Mahoba and Chitrakoot. Thirteen of these 19 seats will go into the poll in the third phase on February 20.

The region roughly has a mix of 27% upper caste votes, 43% OBCs and 21% SCs. The area with a formidable SC population had once been a BSP stronghold.

But even the joint forces of Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party in the 2019 general elections failed to unseat the BJP in the region; they were run over by the Modi juggernaut.

Mayawati, who was lying low until recently, has finally entered the poll arena and addressed a rally in Orai. She targeted the SP, the BJP and the Congress and underscored the fact that the BJP has ignored the Muslims and ‘Prabudh Samaj’ (Brahmins); political observers see in this an attempt to recreate her old formula of Dalit + Brahmin + Muslim + a portion of OBC votes.

In 2012, BSP won 7 out of 19 seats with 26.2% vote share; the SP secured 5 with 25.3% vote share; the Congress 4 with 18.6% vote share; and the BJP 3 with 18.9% vote share, which gives BSP a ray of hope. “This is an era of aspirational politics.

And the growing aspirations among the Dalits can make them gravitate towards the BJP, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party. Both the BJP and the Congress have given them space in their party organisation and ticket distribution for various elections,” points out Rajesh Singh, a senior journalist with an English daily, who has covered the region.

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