UP polls: Mayawati is back, or is she?

After lying low for long, Mayawati out to impress that she is in the reckoning

After lying low for long, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo, Mayawati, is now trying to impress upon all that she is much in the political reckoning in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, where a seven-phase assembly election commences on February 10.

Addressing her first election rally at Agra on Wednesday, followed by the next one on the following day in Ghaziabad (both in western UP from where the polling begins), she explained why she has plunged into the electoral arena somewhat late in the day. "I was busy doing the backroom work of putting the party organisation in place and select candidates for the state's 403 assembly seat," she said.

As if to further impress her audience, who had turned up in large numbers, despite the Election Commission's restrictions, she declared, "My party is all set to bounce back to power as we did in 2007." She stressed, "Every other political party may have written us off, and the media has chosen to ignore the BSP, but our return to power is the writing on the wall." To the media, she said, "Don't repeat your mistake of ignoring the BSP as you did in 2007."

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In her usual style, she read out her long speeches in Agra and Ghaziabad from a written text, believed to be prepared by herself. And interestingly, she chose to train her guns more at the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) than at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

While she termed the Congress "anti-Dalit", she attacked the SP for "bad governance" and for "poor law and order". Her only attack against the ruling BJP came when she sought to remind people how the ruling dispensation had discontinued the welfare schemes initiated for the good of Dalits. In what appeared to be a milder and restrained attack, she said, "The BJP's policies have been guided more by the RSS, which has always tilted towards the upper castes."

Explaining why she considered the Congress totally "anti-Dalit", she recounted how the party did not consider conferring the Bharat Ratna on BR Ambedkar. "The Congress party never cared to recognise the great contribution of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar towards the upliftment of Dalits in the country, and that was the reason he was not even considered for a Bharat Ratna during Congress rule," she pointed out. "It was only as late as in 1990 after Congress ceased to be in power that Ambedkar received this honour", she added. She criticised the Congress for "not declaring even a day's official mourning on the death of BSP founder Kanshi Ram."

However, it was surprising that the BSP chief chose to spend a lot of time reminding the audience of what she had done during her chief ministership for the larger good of Dalits. Both in Agra and Ghaziabad, her utterances reflected a common "anti-SP" sentiment that is also pronounced in the speeches of BJP leaders. Much like the BJP, Mayawati too pointedly blamed the SP for communal rioting in the state. It seemed pretty apparent that she intended to tell Muslims that they were "unsafe" during the SP rule. "Remember that the Muzaffarnagar riots happened because of poor handling by the Samajwadi Party government," she said.

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Another common ground with the BJP to attack the SP was her running down Akhilesh Yadav for "neglecting Dalits and the extreme backwards." She was clearly worried about the alliances that Akhilesh Yadav has stitched with prominent groups of extreme backwards. Curiously, Mayawati criticised the SP for actions the party had not taken. Without buttressing her claim with an example, she said, "The SP government changed the names of towns which I had named after Dalit icons as a token of recognition for their great contribution towards the cause of the downtrodden."

Even while blaming the BJP for being partisan in booking people for "criminal acts", her criticism was sharper of the SP's "patronising of criminals", which the BJP also does in equal measure. Yet, she promised that once her party is back in power, she will ensure that innocent people are out of jails and only criminals, outlaws, and anti-social elements put behind bars.

Significantly, she was guarded in accusing the BJP of spreading communalism. There was no word on how the ruling dispensation was going hammer and tongs on using religion for politics. She also refrained from even making a passing reference to the BJP's blatant bid to polarise Hindus and even going to the extent of turning a blind eye against those seeking to spread hatred against Muslims.

To reassure people that she was all set to stage a comeback, Mayawati listed promises for the larger good of Dalits and weaker sections of society. Interestingly, she skipped commenting on the opposition's accusation that was she was "Team B" of the ruling BJP.

The BSP chief claimed her decision to award a large number of tickets to Muslims aimed at giving them larger representation than her political rivals. However, the strategy was understood as a game plan to divide the Muslim vote, which is widely perceived to be falling in the SP's lap this time.

With the sword of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate dangling over her on account of the cases of disproportionate assets pending against her and her family members, she is believed to be under pressure. Her prolonged silence and absence from the political mainstream ever since the last state election in 2017 was thought to reflect that intimidation.

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Far from caring to take a plunge into the hotbed of ground politics, she had, for some time now, detailed her party general secretary Satish Mishra to hold political rallies in different parts of the state. Subsequently, she also assigned the task to her younger brother Anand Kumar and her nephew, both of whom are seen as political non-entities.

Emphasising that she would address a series of rallies over the coming days, Mayawati repeatedly reminded her audience that the party symbol was "elephant". She also considered it necessary to ask them to turn out in large numbers to press the 'elephant' button on polling days. She, however, failed to explain how she was hoping to raise her party's stock from a paltry 19 seats to a winning count in the 403-member UP assembly.

While she could continue to retain a chunk of her traditional vote bank of Jatav Dalits, it is unlikely that her last-minute entry into the electoral battlefield would make any difference to the non-Jatav Dalit vote over which she commanded complete sway until her party was voted out of power in 2007. Her party is not seen as among the key players in the current political battle primarily perceived to be between the BJP and the SP.

(Sharat Pradhan is an author and a journalist based in Lucknow.)