Fighting for survival in Uttar Pradesh politics, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati is working on a rainbow coalition of Dalit-Muslim-Other Backward Class-Upper Caste to regain lost ground in the upcoming general election.

PREMIUM

BSP leader Rajkumar Gautam said Mayawati is using her tested “social engineering” formula to form alliances between the Upper Caste- Dalit- Muslims which brought the BSP to power in the 2007 assembly election. Mayawati wishes to give the message that the BSP has the support of all communities. “We are going into the Lok Sabha election with the slogan, sarvajan sukhay, sarvajan hitay (welfare of all the communities)”, Gautam said.

In the Muslim-dominated Rohilkhand region of West Uttar Pradesh, BSP has fielded Majid Ali from the Saharanpur seat, Dr Mujahid Hussain from Amroha, Mohammad Irfan Saifi from Moradabad, Zishan Khan from Rampur, Shaulat Ali from Sambhal, Abid Ali from Aonla, and Anis Ahmad Khan alias Phool Babu from Pilibhit.

These candidates are likely to cut into the Muslim votes that will go to the INDIA bloc. The Samajwadi Party- Congress alliance strategy to consolidate Muslim votes was thus challenged by the BSP. The Muslim community vote is decisive in around 24 Lok Sabha seats out of 80.

Samajwadi Party which is leading the INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh is working on the PDA strategy — Picchda (backward), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities) — to retain its hold over its traditional support base of OBC and Muslims. SP has released seven lists of party candidates for the Lok Sabha election. Out of the 46 candidates announced by SP so far, it has fielded Muslim candidates in Sambhal, Ghazipur, Moradabad and Kairana. SP has fielded sitting MP ST Hasan from Moradabad seat, Zia Ur Rehman Barq, the son of former MP Shafiqur Rehman Barq from Sambhal, Afzal Ansari (who defected from BSP) in Ghazipur and Iqra Hasan from Kairana.

The SP has also strategically fielded OBC candidates in Muslim-dominated seats to give a boost to its OBC-Muslim formula. Ally Congress has given a ticket to Imran Masood from the Saharanpur seat and Danish Ali (another former BSP leader) in Amroha.

Senior SP leader Rajendra Chaudhary said that the Muslim community was aware of what the BSP was doing, and it is similar to their tactics in the 2022 assembly election and in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The Muslim community will support INDIA bloc candidates in 2024, he said.

However, Mayawati has expressed confidence in her Muslim support base — a sharp turnaround after blaming them for the party’s defeat in the 2022 assembly election. Mayawati had then said that the Muslim community dumped the BSP due to the campaign launched by BJP and SP to polarise the Muslim and Hindu vote. “The Muslim community should understand that only the BSP is in a position to check the BJP juggernaut in the Lok Sabha or assembly election,” she said.

Mayawati’s move also throws a spanner in the National Democratic Alliance’s strategy. The BJP is relying on the support of the Upper Caste- Dalit- OBC voters to sweep the Lok Sabha election for a third consecutive term in the Centre. The party has renominated a majority of the candidates who secured a victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, denying tickets to only nine former winners.

But the BSP will cut into the Upper Caste and OBC support base of the BJP through its Brahmin, Rajput and Tyagi candidates in seats dominated by these communities.

BSP has fielded Rajput candidates Rajendra Singh Solanki from Gautam Buddha Nagar, Sripal Singh from Kairana and Kuldeep Bhadouria from Kanpur; Brahmin community candidates Kamal Kant Upmanyu from Mathura, Ram Niwas Sharma from Fatehpur Sikri and Rajesh Kumar Devedi from Akbarpur; and Tyagi community candidates Devrat Tyagi from Meerut and Satyendra Jain Sauli from Firozabad.

Devrat Tyagi will challenge BJP candidate Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in the TV series Ramayana in Meerut. Land-holding agrarian Tyagi community vote is decisive in deciding the fate of candidates on over half a dozen seats in West UP. Tyagis have been long-standing supporters of the BJP, but in the mahapanchayats held recently, they alleged neglect by the party. The BSP plans to play on the annoyance of the community to win their support.

In West UP too, Mayawati plans to use the Dalit- Upper Caste formula to cut into the BJP support base in both the constituencies. For instance, in Mathura, where BJP has expressed faith in two-term MP Hema Malini, the BSP has fielded Brahmin community candidate Kamal Kant Upmanyu who is likely to make inroads into the upper caste vote base of the BJP.

Among the backward community, BSP’s ticket to Jat candidate Vijendra Singh from Bijnor came at the cost of sitting party MP Maluk Nagar (of the Gujjar community) after the NDA announced that it would allot Bijnor to the RLD, under its alliance agreement. Dara Singh Prajapati who enjoys influence over the OBC voters in Muzaffarnagar is the national president of Prajapati Mahasabha and is the BSP candidate in that seat. Gujjar community’s Praveen Baisala will contest from Baghpat.

Political analyst SK Singh said that BSP chief Mayawati’s decision to go solo in the 2024 Lok Sabha election has set the pitch for the three-cornered contest in Uttar Pradesh. Even as the rival parties term BSP a “vote katwa” (one who divides votes) in the fight between BJP-led NDA and SP-lead INDIA bloc, Mayawati’s candidates have been carefully selected keeping the caste calculus of each constituency in mind. Thus, the BSP is likely to upset both the NDA and INDIA bloc.