BJP’s B-team or something brewing? Mayawati’s see-saw keeps people guessing
Dramatic U-turns within 24 hours are not unusual in politics. But when Mayawati staged such a U-turn a couple of days back, it evoked both surprise and some confusion.
On June 21, in a meeting of all important BSP functionaries, including divisional and district committee members, called supposedly to gear them up for preparatory work for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Mayawati launched a strident tirade against the BJP. She attacked the BJP, ruling both at the Centre and the state, for diverting the attention of the people from real issues like inflation, unemployment, poverty, harassment of women, and lack of basic amenities like electricity, water, and roads through communal and religious discourse.
The attack was politically even sharper. Mayawati blamed the BJP for indulging in a politics of hate and conjuring up issues like love jihad (Muslim boys marrying Hindu girls), land jihad (Muslims buying and grabbing Hindus’ properties), hijab, and madrassas (as breeding grounds of terror), and resorting to bulldozer politics and creating religious frenzy.
Behenji’s volte-face
Many political observers in UP, who did not expect this, were both astonished and a bit intrigued. They had almost concluded that the much-marginalized Mayawati was going over to the BJP camp. This impression was reinforced when Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav described BSP as the B-team of BJP on June 13.
Also read: Dalit leaders Mayawati and Manjhi opting out of alliance could hurt Opposition
Akhilesh, too, was addressing an SP cadre meeting called to discuss preparations for the 2024 polls, and there he cautioned his cadre to be alert against Mayawati’s designs to field candidates chosen by the BJP to split and divert Muslim and non-Yadav votes from going to the SP. Unlike the 2022 assembly polls, during which this was done only in a select few constituencies, the BSP would go the whole hog during the coming Lok Sabha polls and do it in all the constituencies, he warned.
This impression of Mayawati’s pro-BJP turn was strengthened by her studied silence or low-key reaction on several popular issues coming up against the BJP, like the wrestlers’ issue or farmers’ issues. And also, her support to Modi’s inauguration of the New Parliament building. Then, what is happening? Is Behenji rediscovering the virtues of secular politics? The surprise was all the bigger because Mayawati was engaging in this anti-BJP rhetoric just on the eve of the Opposition leaders’ meeting in Patna. Was she sending some signal to the leaders about to gather in Patna?
BJP’s arm-twisting
No. The answer to this puzzle lies in the reportedly orchestrated media campaign allegedly planted in a mainstream English newspaper and by the BJP, digging up the old issue of the purchase of 261 flats by Mayawati and her brother in 2010, now in June 2023, which has been given wide publicity in the Hindi media. The Income-Tax Department also seized a Rs 400-crore plot belonging to Mayawati’s brother and his wife in Greater NOIDA. The BJP seems to be using this as a bargaining lever to bring Mayawati around to act as its B-team. Will they succeed in this?
Mohammad Salim, a prominent Left leader in Mirzapur, told The Federal, “The BSP and the BJP will not directly come together again as in the past. That is because the BJP cannot gain much by entering a seat-sharing arrangement in an electoral alliance. This is because the entire Awadh belt, from Unnao to Lucknow, is Paasi-dominated, and the Paasis are already with the BJP. Likewise, in Purvanchal (eastern UP), the Khatiks or Sonkars are in a majority among Dalits, and they are also with the BJP. Only, the Jatavs/Chamars are with the BSP, and they are concentrated in Western UP. However, BSP contesting alone would benefit the BJP because it can cut into SP’s Muslim votes and non-Yadav OBC votes.
“But the BJP cannot take it for granted yet. Mayawati is a hard bargainer. Even if she were to play the B-team for BJP for some consideration, she would not do it in meek submission but would execute that on her own terms. BJP’s raid raj and blackmail politics show that they are still trying to arm-twist the BSP. Mayawati would succumb in all probability, as her options are limited, but not before extracting her price, especially some kind of reprieve for her and her brother in all the cases. Let us see how things turn out.”
The 21 June attack on the BJP by Mayawati might well be part of this bigger bargain.
Also read: Mayawati targets political parties attending crucial Opposition meeting in Patna
Mystery of the “right kind of preparations”
Then came the surprise U-turn the very next day. Just a day before the Patna meet, on June 22, she pooh-poohed the Opposition unity venture in a sarcastic vein. But she chose her words carefully. “Dil mile ya na mile, haath milate rahiye!” (whether hearts meet or not, keep joining hands) she said, hinting that it was only a routine formal exercise.
She even added an enigmatic element to her response. “With 80 Lok Sabha seats, Uttar Pradesh is crucial for any electoral success. But the Opposition parties are not serious about the right kind of preparations here. The BSP will closely follow the developments and decide,” she added. The mystery of the “right kind of preparations” might never get unraveled, as these measured words could well be part of her bargaining tactic with the BJP.
This criticism of the Opposition meet was preceded by another U-turn by Mayawati. After the poor performance in the 2022 Assembly polls, Mayawati openly blamed Muslims for moving away from BSP to vote for SP, which she said was the main reason for the poor performance of the BSP. This further alienated the Muslims. But surprisingly, during the urban civic elections held in May 2023, she nominated Muslim candidates for 11 out of 17 mayoral posts, especially in all Muslim-concentration municipal corporations like Lucknow, Mathura, Firozabad, Prayagraj, Sahranpur, Moradabad, Meerut, Shajahanpur, Gaziabad, Aligarh, and Bareilly. This, when even the Samajwadi Party and the Congress had nominated only four Muslim candidates each for the mayoral posts.
“Vote-cutting” strategy
Some observers thought she had realized her folly and wanted to make amends by trying to win back Muslim support by giving them a bigger role in the civic polls. But a Samajwadi Party leader clarified to The Federal that this was rather a continuation of the “vote-cutting” strategy she adopted in the 2022 Assembly polls and no change of heart, as she never used to contest urban civil polls. The BSP had no urban base and started contesting municipal polls only since 2017.
After the results of the recent urban local body elections were out, some candidates and second-line BSP leaders again blamed Muslims for deserting the BSP. But in a state-level meeting of BSP leaders on May 12, called to review the party’s performance in the civic polls, Mayawati tried to dispel the impression that Muslim voters had deserted the BSP. She reportedly told the party leaders, “In the 2024 elections, the party’s emphasis will be on reaching out to Muslims and weaning them from Samajwadi Party without compromising on the party’s basic principle of ‘sarvajan hitay’ (well-being of all).” This new-found love for Muslims and the U-turn are part of her vote-splitting strategy, the SP leader asserted.
Also read: Cong ignores Dalits, Muslims in new Karnataka govt, says Mayawati
Despite Mayawati and the BSP remaining in denial mode, from the low votes polled by BSP mayoral candidates in many constituencies with a sizable Muslim population, it is clear that even the limited Muslim base that was with the BSP has now started deserting it. Many block-level BSP Muslim leaders are leaving BSP and are going to SP or Congress. Not only Muslim leaders, OBC leaders and even some Brahmin voters are also leaving the BSP. For instance, in the municipal elections, the BSP put up a Brahmin candidate in one seat in Mirzapur, but he got only 400 votes. The Brahmins did not vote for him.
In the 2022 Assembly polls, the BSP vote share shrank to 12.88 per cent from 19.43 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and 22.23 per cent in the 2017 Assembly polls. Jatavs comprise around 12 per cent of UP population and hence it appears as if the BSP retains only its core constituency despite all its bahujan-sarvajan rhetoric. This could be the primary reason for getting reduced to a potential B-team of the ruling party.
Souring of ties with SP
Strangely, in Uttar Pradesh, though the SP and the BSP came together to form a government in 1993 and again, despite coming together to contest the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, their relationship is now marked by sharp hostility. Mayawati considers SP the main political enemy and not the BJP, and the SP doesn’t consider Mayawati to be even a potential ally in a broad anti-BJP coalition and doesn’t make any political overtures even to wean the BSP away from the BJP’s influence.
There was, of course, some speculation about backchannel talks between the Congress and the BSP, especially for reaching some deal in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, where Assembly elections are due and where BSP has some base. Since these elections are expected to be neck-to-neck contests, some thought this could be true and not mere speculations, especially when neither the Congress nor the BSP has officially denied such media reports.
Anyway, in the backdrop of such rumours, the JD(U), convener of the Opposition leaders’ meet in Patna, which clarified after her tirade that Mayawati was never invited to the meet in the first place, further clarified that any invitation to BSP should be a joint one and not a decision of the Congress alone. Even while expressing SP’s reservations to include Mayawati in the Opposition combine, did this clarification hint that something was brewing between the BSP and the Congress?
Also read: Mayawati accuses BJP of misusing govt machinery in UP mayoral polls
There were media reports of a senior BSP leader visiting the Congress headquarters in Delhi and also of Congress national secretary Sampath Kumar meeting Praveen Kumar, Telangana BSP president in Hyderabad. Though local BSP leaders are refusing to attach any substantial significance to these media reports, UP can throw up surprising socio-political realignments in the run-up to 2024.
There was media speculation of possible projection of Mayawati as the possible first Dalit PM before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in case Modi failed to muster a majority. Modi’s comfortable majority scotched such speculation. Mayawati herself raked up this issue in October 2022 and asked why a Dalit could not become the PM. The uncertainty around Modi’s majority in 2024 is greater now and this speculation would re-surface again. This could well become BJP’s bait to make Mayawati act as a B-teamer!
