LS polls: Mayawati uses the Muslims, Brahmins, Dalits formula

By Ratan Mani Lal

Lucknow: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, effectively putting at rest all rumours of any pre-poll alliance with the Congress or any other party. Also by confirming its candidate in Varanasi, the possibility of a common candidate against Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also come to a nought.

The BSP was the only party which had so far refrained from announcing any list — partial or othersie — of its candidates for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and has announced the full list in one go. When the BSP leader Mayawati made this announcement in Lucknow on Thursday, it was clear that all talk of her contesting for the Lok Sabha from Lalganj near Azamgarh were just "rumours." She said reports about Satish Chandra Misra and Naseemuddin Siddiqui contesting the Lok Sabha election were "fallacious and mischievous."

Mayawati. PTI

The party has a clear strategy of jumping into the fray with the untested M-B-D formula — comprising Muslims, Brahmins and Dalits — contrary to the belief that hers is a Dalit party. With her Dalit vote base remaining largely intact, she would expect to increase her tally in western UP where a strong anti-SP feeling runs high among Muslims in the aftermath of the riots.

Interestingly, a quick look at the list indicates that the party has given ticket to 63 non-Dalit candidates, with 21 Brahmins forming the largest chunk, followed by 19 Muslims, of which 12 are in west UP. These include Kadir Rana, the sitting MP from Muzaffarnagar, who is one of the accused for instigating the riots there in August-September last.

The list also includes 17 candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes and 15 from the Other Backward Castes (OBCs). Among the 29 candidates belonging to the so-called upper castes there are 8 Kshatriyas. There are seven women in the list.

Vijay Jaiswal remains the candidate from Varanasi, to take on Narendra Modi, and former state minister Nakul Dubey is the contestant from Lucknow, from where BJP national president Rajnath Singh is contesting.

Among other former ministers in the list are RK Choudhary, Rakesh Dhar Tripathi, Haji Yaqub Kureshi and Lalji Varma. The contestant from Amethi is Dharmendra Pratap Singh, into the fray against Rahul Gandhi, while Pravesh Singh is pitted in Rae Bareli from where Sonia Gandhi is the Congress candidate.

The BJP was the target throughout Mayawati's speech at the press conference, and she reaffirmed that the BSP would do everything possible to stop the BJP-led NDA from coming to power. The BSP, she said, had collaborated thrice in the past with the BJP to form government in UP but there had been no change in its thinking or ideology. "When we were in a coalition we ran the government as per our ideology and once they tried to interfere in it we opted out," she said.

She also did not even once mention the Aam Aadmi Party or the so-called challenge it poses in the coming election.

But Mayawati kept a door for post-poll arrangement open by saying that her party was in the fray to defeat both the Congress and the BJP in the election and was prepared to emerge as the "balance of power" at the centre and would take the help of other secular parties to form the government at the centre. She specifically mentioned the BJP and SP as being "communal" leaving out the Congress from this charge. Mayawati has also ruled out any alliance with either Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress or Jayalalitha's All India ADMK, saying that the BSP was contesting in these states also.

Referring pointedly to the so-called battle royale in eastern UP, she said that Mulayam Singh Yadav's decision to contest from Azamgarh was a "design" of the SP and the BJP to polarise voters in the region. The two parties, she alleged, could trigger communal disturbances in the state for electoral gains. However, the presence of Kadir Rana's name in the candidates' list is a pointer that the party is not averse in taking advantage of polarization in Muzaffarnagar and adjoining areas such as Sambhal, Amroha, Kairana, Moradabad, Rampur and Meerut.

A 24-page booklet — printed in the BSP's colour blue — was distributed to the media persons, not as the party's manifesto but as an appeal by Mayawati as to why voters should choose BSP over other "opposition parties" who were making "populist promises." It also lists the decisions and policies of her government in the state and the steps taken by her to "take care of the interests of all castes and communities."

The declaration of the list has created enthusiasm in among the party workers, with one former minister saying that the party will win far more than the 21 seats it has at present. The party has changed its candidates in many places where it was felt they posed a weak challenge to the incumbent.

She will kickstart her party's campaign from 22 March but will address her first public rally in Bijnore on 3 April. She said she proposed to spend "90 percent of my time in UP" during which she will hold rallies in different UP constituencies until 8 May.