Nalin Verma 
After declining to join either the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has asked her cadres to stay away from the by-election for the Ghosi assembly seat, taking place today, September 5
Just before INDIA’s meet at Mumbai when journalists told Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav that Mayawati had dubbed both INDIA and NDA as “anti-Dalit” and “casteist”, the former said, “We haven’t invited her”. He refused to elaborate on further questions on her joining the grouping.
While Mayawati is learned to have categorically instructed party cadres to not vote or vote NOTA in the Ghosi bypolls, this writer has received reports that seem to suggest that large numbers of Dalit voters have in fact been arriving to vote.
A close look into the BSP particularly after 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh suggests that Mayawati is faced with the worst-ever crisis. Her party’s vote share plummeted to 12.88% in 2022 from 22.2% in the 2017 elections. It was the lowest vote share for the BSP in 30 years.
The BSP had notably registered its emphatic presence in Uttar Pradesh’s politics by joining hands with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 1993 assembly polls. This had taken place within months of the demolition of the Babri mosque at Ayodhya in December, 1992.
“Mile Mulayam-Kanshi Ram, hawa mein ud gaya ‘Jai Shri Ram’.” This was the catchy slogan of the times. Translated, it means, “When Mulayam and Kanshi Ram come together, one can no longer hear ‘Jai Shri Ram,’ Hindutva groups’ rallying cry. Kanshi Ram was Mayawati’s mentor.
SP-BSP formed a government with Mulayam as the chief minister. As per the agreement between the two parties, the CM’s post was to be rotated between Mulayam and Mayawati.
Also read: BSP Chief Mayawati Reiterates Support for Caste Census
However, the agreement didn’t work and the party cadres fought violently against each other. They parted ways over a year later. But by then Mayawati had emerged as the most potent Dalit leader in the heartland state.
Subsequently, she became Uttar Pradesh chief minister four times either with the support of the BJP or the SP and Congress. In 2007, her BSP succeeded in forming the government on its own, winning 206 seats and securing over 30% votes.
Her party did well in 2009 Lok Sabha polls too by winning 21 seats. The BSP’s fortune has fallen since 2007, but it kept on polling about 20% to 23% votes in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections even after that. In 2022, for the first time, its vote share went down to 12.88 %, reducing it to almost an irrelevant force in the heartland’s politics.
It was largely understood that accommodating Brahmins, forever powerful in the caste dynamics of Uttar Pradesh, and tactically allying with the SP and the BJP had kept the party alive.
Her party won 10 Lok Sabha seats in alliance with the SP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in the 2019 polls. But in the 2014 polls, it had won zero. Remarkably, the BSP’s vote share in 2014 and 2019 was almost same between 19% and 21%.
The point is, despite the BSP enjoying the support of the Dalits it could not convert its vote share into seats. It can perform better at elections by harmonising itself with other parties.
Mayawati Vs Ram Vilas Paswan:
If Mayawati was the Dalit leader of Uttar Pradesh, then Ram Vilas Paswan was the same in Bihar. But there have been three broad differences between the politics of Mayawati and Paswan who died in October 2020. First, while he too struck an alliance with the BJP in accordance with situations, he was keen to never allow his support base to shift to the BJP.
Like Mayawati whose support base was confined to her Jatav caste, Ram Vilas also was confined to his Paswan caste groups in the later years of his long career. But the non-Paswan Dalits communities, even when they drifted from Paswan, went either to Lalu or Nitish Kumar or the CPI-ML-Liberation. They remained socialists, largely, and did not vote for the BJP.
Thirdly and most importantly, Ram Vilas who had made records by winning Bihar’s Hajipur Lok Sabha seat with the highest margins twice in the 1970s and 80s had a strong grip on Bihar politics but always remained in national politics. He fought and befriended Lalu and Nitish at different points of time but never eyed the Bihar chief minister’s post. He was smarter than that and remained minister under all the prime ministers from Vishwanath Pratap Singh in 1989 to Narendra Modi, till he died in 2020. He was better than Mayawati in judging his own limitations.
Bipolar politics
Judging by the indications available, as of now, north India is all set to witness bipolar politics between INDIA and NDA in the run up to the 2024 elections. The BJP has, apparently, been using the BSP as the ‘third party’ to make the battle in UP triangular. The BJP has always done well in multi-cornered contests.
But the observers of north India’s politics believe that in the months to follow, the BSP will be marginalised further as the scope of a third party will shrink in the battle between INDIA and NDA. The BSP’s Balmiki and other non-Jatav community support base is said to have largely shifted to the BJP.
Nitish Kumar, who has worked closely with Akhilesh Yadav to rope in the Dalit votes for the INDIA alliance, is understood have not made any attempts to involve Mayawati.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, author, media educator and independent researcher in folklore.