Which way will Mayawati go? INDIA watches warily as BSP, BJP do the tango

However, the INDIA bloc hasn’t given up hopes of wooing Mayawati. JD(U) chief national spokesperson K C Tyagi said, “JD(U) and its leader Nitish Kumar want total Opposition unity against the present government. SP president Akhilesh Yadav has also expressed the same views from time to time. Now it’s on Mayawati to decide if she wants to simultaneously fight INDIA and the BJP. One can’t fight both. If she chooses INDIA, we’ll welcome her. But she can’t be part of the INDIA bloc if she keeps attacking the Congress and the SP.”

A BSP leader who refused to be named admitted that the party staying away might hurt INDIA. “The BSP may not be in a position to win on its own, but it can damage other parties. The party has a minimum 15,000 votes in every Assembly seat… In the 2022 Assembly polls, when the BSP contested alone, its Muslim candidates had damaged the chances of the SP-led alliance on several seats, where the BJP ended up winning.”

In fact, the leader hinted at a quid pro quo: “When leaders of other Opposition parties are facing probes from Central agencies, no such reports have come about any BSP leader yet,” he says.

Silent support

The BSP has been supporting the BJP government at the Centre tacitly for long, including when the latter tabled the women’s reservation Bill in the recent special session of Parliament. While Mayawati demanded that there be a quota for OBCs, like for SCs and STs within the women’s quota, she went ahead with support for the legislation.

Before that, when a political row erupted over a G20 invitation bearing the phrase “President of Bharat” rather than India, and the Opposition claimed that the move betrayed the BJP’s fear of the INDIA bloc, Mayawati blamed the Opposition. She said that by calling itself INDIA, it had given the BJP an opportunity to “tamper with the Constitution” on the issue. She even called for a ban on all political bodies formed in the name of the country.

Earlier, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushed for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) at a programme in Bhopal on June 27, and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board denounced it, Mayawati responded by stating that her party was “not against” a UCC, but “does not support the way the BJP is trying to implement it”.

On May 25, when over 20 opposition parties announced a boycott of the inauguration of the new Parliament building, she welcomed the event, saying that it was unfair to boycott the ceremony and that the government had the right to unveil it as they were the ones who had made it.

In the 2022 Presidential polls, the BSP backed the BJP-led NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu, as she went on to become the first tribal to occupy the post. Mayawati then hit out at Opposition parties for not inviting the BSP to meetings where names of probable Opposition Presidential candidates were discussed, calling their attitude “anti-BSP” and “casteist”.

A few weeks later, in August 2022, she announced the BSP’s support for the NDA’s vice-presidential candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar “in view of larger public interest and the party’s own movement”.

INDIA bloc parties, which have been watching Mayawati’s moves warily, say the BSP chief has never expressed any wish to be part of the front. “On many occasions, the BSP has criticised the Congress more than the BJP… Only those parties in the INDIA bloc that are ready to fight the BJP in 2024… (have been invited),” a JD(U) leader had said ahead of the first INDIA meeting. Mayawati had retorted by questioning the “seriousness” of the attempt towards Opposition unity by JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar.

The Congress national media panelist Surendra Rajput refused to comment on the subject.

Mutual moves

Another reason for INDIA’s wariness is that even when the BSP leadership targets the BJP, it makes it a point to also attack the Congress (and to a lesser extent, the SP). But, at all times, Mayawati avoids making any direct comment on the PM or UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

BJP leaders too largely focus their political attacks on the SP and Congress, rarely speaking out against the BSP. Sources said the party avoids direct comments on Mayawati as it fears hurting the sentiments of Dalit voters in UP — among whom the BSP chief remains an icon.

In the recent Ghosi Assembly bypoll, the BJP even invoked the 1995 guesthouse incident — when SP supporters had physically threatened Mayawati after she had withdrawn support to the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government — which was seen as a bid to attract Dalit votes.

SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said, “Mayawati’s political moves directly or indirectly help the BJP. For example, the BSP often fields candidates in elections to damage the SP. That helps the BJP. There has to be some mutual understanding between the two parties.”

BSP UP state president Vishwanath Pal said, “The fact is, SP is a B-team of the BJP. But BSP will stop both INDIA and NDA at the Lok Sabha polls in UP, by making an alliance with people of all sections and communities on the ground.”

A BJP leader said the party was looking beyond UP. “The BSP has only one vote bank, Dalits, and the BJP gets up to 30% of that in every UP election. But the BSP also has votes in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where Assembly polls are due this year. So why alienate them? Besides, in UP, the BJP’s fight is for OBC votes, as the SP has a hold on Yadavs and has shown it can connect with non-Yadav OBCs as well, as it did in the 2022 Assembly polls.”

There are some in the BSP, though, who see the party as having a better future in the INDIA alliance. A leader points out that when the BSP had formed an alliance with the SP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it had won 10 seats.