Readying For The Big Push

Mayawati propels herself and her state to centre stage, as battlelines for the Lok Sabha elections are being drawn, writes SRAWAN SHUKLA from Lucknow

HER AMBITION to be India’s prime minister — not just some day, but some day soon — is no secret. Last week, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati also demonstrated, forcefully, her ability. In a brilliant counter-move to the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) opening gambit of patching up with Sonia Gandhi and allying with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on the nuclear deal, Mayawati’s tactic was to marshal the rest of the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) forces and take the Left parties on board.

In doing so, she achieved several gains: she countered SP’s central thrust by getting herself crowned the undisputed queen of the Third Front and hijacked the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) agenda of trying to defeat the government on the trust vote. But, most important, she regained pole position for UP in the coming parliamentary election.

Since UP is the turf where she galloped to victory with a rainbow Dalit-Muslim- Brahmin coalescence of votes, Mayawati’s move is pure calculation. “The last few days have bolstered the BSP’s attempts to develop a pan-India identity, and have certainly increased its poll prospects beyond UP. Now we are taking her social engineering formula to 20 states outside UP,” says her confidant Veer Singh, also in charge of BSP’s electoral plans in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

That the route to New Delhi is via UP, the state which returns 80 members to the Lok Sabha, is a given. But in an era of coalition regimes, the old dictum of ‘who rules UP rules the Centre’ hasn’t always held good — other regional satraps have made successful bids for play as both kings and kingmakers. Today, with state powerhouses Mayawati and Mulayam becoming twin authors of new realignments on the central stage, both the UNPA and the UPA’s future will necessarily revolve around them.

A fortnight ago, the political momentum was with SP President Mulayam; last week, Mayawati led the charge. Mulayam had dealt the UNPA a body blow; Mayawati shored it. She made political inroads into states beyond UP, with allies such as Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu, K. Chandrasekhara Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) and the big coup—pulling Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) from the UPA’s clutch into her orbit. “The BSP and the RLD, with their Jat-Jatav- Muslim caste combination, will worry the Congress- SP combine. Both parties will benefit from the new political and caste equations,” points Ram Asrey Varma, the RLD state president.

Even more important, the BSP is ahead of all others in its poll readiness. In UP alone, it has finalised candidates for most Lok Sabha seats.

FURTHER AFIELD, party units in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have identified seats and candidates, while a list of probables for Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh has been submitted. The BSP is also set to contest in the J&K, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan Assembly polls. “We have already launched our poll preparations in these states,” says Veer Singh.

Is her opposition worried of the Mayawati juggernaut? They certainly won’t admit it. “This is just a short dream to fulfil short-term objectives. She is arrogant and self-centred and can’t accommodate any political outfit. Her bossiness will not let the so-called Third Front survive even for a few days,” claims Dr Rita Bahuguna Joshi, state Congress committee president.

That’s an interesting charge, given that Mayawati reneged on her power sharing plan with the BJP in 1997. “Mayawati may have had quick gains but the Left and UNPA constituents seem to have used her by showing her the Dalit PM lollipop,” claims Bahuguna Joshi.

Others point out that coalitions are run on numbers, not by ideology. ‘‘The SP has already ensured that the Congress’ doors are shut for Mayawati, and the Left and the Right (the BJP) coming together to support her candidature as PM is a far-fetched dream at the moment,” asserts commentator AK Varma, Professor of Poiltical Science at Christchurch College, Kanpur.

Analysts agree that since the BSP had made substantial gains in the 2007 assembly polls in Western UP (increasing its tally by 12 seats) with its vertical social coalition, the alliance with RLD will negate those gains. “The RLD certainly stands to gain at the expense of the BSP,” suggests Varma. With only three Lok Sabha MPs, Ajit Singh is the big gainer.

Joshi, however, claims that Ajit Singh will realise he has made a mistake when Mayawati “dumps” him. “Traditionally, Jat and Jatav have never voted together. Then, farmers in Western UP are annoyed with Mayawati for supporting the sugar lobby and acquiring their fertile lands for industrialists. This will cost Ajit Singh dear,” she points out.

Despite these reservations, Mayawati’s political legerdemain has sent jitters through the SP camp. By poaching SP’sMuslim MPs, she has already shaken them, and by taking Mulayam’s position in the UNPA, she’s trying to question the party’s secular credentials. And since Muslim votes play a decisive role in 17 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, strident comments about the nuclear deal being anti-Muslim have been made.

Mayawati also hopes to cash in on Muslims’ anger against the Congress for its unlocking the doors of the disputed Ram shrine on the Babri Masjid premises, and holding the shilanyas. “Mulayam’s biggest worry is to check erosion of his Muslim vote-bank. To minimise that risk, he had no alternative than to enter into an alliance with the Congress,” says Prashant Kumar, a veteran journalist.

SP leaders allay these fears. “Our Muslim votebank remains intact. Such tactics will not change their minds. They will continue to support the SP, which has always stood for their cause,” claims Shivpal Yadav, SP state working president.

The Congress has also come to the rescue of its new partner. “The deal can be national or anti-national, how can it be anti-Muslim?” asks Joshi. The party has drafted a paper on the deal, detailing its benefits. State leaders have been asked to meet Muslim clerics and leaders to reiterate that secularism is Congress’ strong suit.

The Congress has nothing to lose from the alliance with the SP. It’s already at rock bottom in the state, with a 12.04 percent vote share and nine Lok Sabha seats. “The alliance will be beneficial for both parties in UP and outside,” claims state party spokesman Akhilesh Singh.

Amid the shifting sands of state politics, it is ‘the party with a difference’ that seems the most bewildered. A weak state president, a dominant and defiant Kalyan Singh and internal bickering within the state unit have made the BJP vulnerable. The list of probable candidates, prepared by state chief Ramapati Ram Tripathi, a close confidant of party president Rajnath Singh, has been rejected by the party’s Central election committee. Senior leaders Kalyan Singh, Vinay Katiyar and Kalraj Mishra were not consulted. “The BJP should gain in UP from the anti-incumbency,” claims Om Prakash Singh, a state leader.

If the exact political equations in the state are yet to take final shape, what is without doubt is that the road to Parliamentary power in 2009 passes right through the heart of Uttar Pradesh. And that the Dalit supremo is straddling the crossroads of choice. •