FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

These elections are a battle of credibility for former chief minister Mayawati

- PRATUL SHARMA

On February 2, eight days before the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, Mayawati came out of hibernation. She chose Agra, the dalit capital of India, to address her first rally. “I was busy building the organisation from the booth level,” she told the crowd. “I stayed home and interviewed all 403 candidates. I was betrayed by senior leaders who are no longer here; they did not keep caste equations in mind and put up dummy candidates in collusion with other parties.”

The audience kept quiet, perhaps not buying the explanation, but erupted when she trashed “biased opinion polls” and promised a repeat of 2007. The polls then had dismissed the Bahujan Samaj Party; it won a brute majority.

But a decade and a half is an eternity in politics, and Mayawati has not kept pace. These elections are a battle of credibility for the former chief minister, and also for the future of the party.

The BSP's political journey can be charted through its slogans for each election. This time, it is: 'Har polling booth jitana hai, Basapa ko satta mein lana hai' (We have to win all polling booths, and bring the BSP to power). Mayawati knows that other parties, especially the BJP, have far superior booth-level management; hence, the focus on that aspect.

In recent years, parties such as the BJP and the Samajwadi Party have adopted the BSP’s social engineering strategy; the BJP has even overtaken its core social justice plank ‘Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay’ (Benefit for all, comfort for all) with the slogan ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ (With everyone, for everyone’s development).