By Manish Anand
New Delhi, December 10: Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati is now warming up to the challenge of the Lok Sabha elections in another four months. Facing fast eroding support base, Mayawti will address party leaders from all across the country to share her vision for the Lok Sabha elections.
The birthday of Mayawati is also approaching on January 15. The BSP as a tradition celebrates the birthday of Mayawati with all the pomp and show by making outreach to the supportbase by spotlighting efforts made by her when she was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the welfare of the people.
But Mayawati now has a big devil to fight off ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. In the just concluded Assembly elections, Mayawati had to spend much time countering the alleged circulation of fake videos where it was suggested that she was sympathetic to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Mayawati in her speeches had accused senior Congress leader and Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot for hatching conspiracy against the BSP.
The BSP fared poorly in the Rajasthan Assembly elections where the party had been winning about four Assembly seats since 1998. The BSP could win just two Assembly seats in Rajasthan. The Mayawati-led outfit drew a blank in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana. The party ranks appear saddled with doubts about the direction of the BSP as Mayawati is increasingly seen withdrawn from the public space as she addresses a lesser number of rallies and public meetings in election time.
The BSP had won 10 Lok Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 general election. The BJP had gained from the alliance with the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal. The Samajwadi Party had won just five Lok Sabha seats. But the BSP is now reduced to the margins of the UP politics as the Samajwadi Party is maintaining a distance from Mayawati.
The BSP is likely to go into the elections on its own, and may face the possibility of the Muslim vote base consolidating in favour of the Samajwadi Party. With the famed social engineerig of Mayawati scripted in 2007 by her aide and the Rajya Sabha MP Satish Chandra Mishra now in tatters, the BSP is left just with the Dalit and the extremely backward castes’ vote base to appeal to. The BSP also has to square off with the BJP as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing his party to expand the support base among Dalits and the extremely backward castes.
The BJP has been seen to have been successful to exploiting the BSP factor in Uttar Pradesh to the party’s advantage. The BJP made big gains in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh with the Muslim vote base splotting between the BSP and the SP. The BJP may once more be looking at the repeat of the 2014 political plot in Uttar Pradesh amid the likelihood of a triangular contest in the state.
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