UP ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2017 - The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), led by Mayawati, has been put across largely as a “poacher” and a “vote cutter” in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, dimming the party’s standing as an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Congress combine sought after by politically significant and big social groupings. Mayawati, known by the moniker “Behenji”, continues to inspire respect among sections of the Dalits and instills a degree of confidence among those Muslims who recognised her potential to be a more effective challenger to the BJP than the SP-Congress in places.
However, BSP—the first party to get a majority of its own in 2007 after a long spell of messy coalitions—is unlikely to repeat that feat because the magic figure of 207 Mayawati had attained then was catalysed by a rainbow social alliance that had space for almost every major social grouping. In the ongoing polls, Mayawati has forfeited the backward caste votes, especially those of the most backward castes, and the upper caste votes to the BJP.
The BSP is not the first choice of most Muslims because they were skeptical of Mayawati’s past tendency to do business with the BJP and install herself as the chief minister if an electoral verdict was unclear. Tanveer Akhtar, a small farmer of Isauli in the Sultanpur district who supplemented his earnings by driving a hired car, said, “Mayawati remains suspect for us although she recently clarified she would rather sit out in the Opposition than go with the BJP. We can’t take her words on face value because she craves for power above everything else.”(READ MORE)
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