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Mayawati gets mandate from UP
Published on Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:41, Updated at Wed, Jun 20, 2007 in 
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MAYAWATI TAKES THRONE: The BSP wins power after seven rounds of polling spread over a month.
Other stories in the section:
Is Kalam a pawn in President polls?
Kalam has consistently said that he is not interested in a second term but that hardly matters to parties.
Agreeing with sardesai, Kapil Sibal said, “Yes, this is the right reason. As far as the organisation is concerned this is the reality in UP. We don’t have the strong organisations that cadre-based parties have. But you cannot explain the lack of a local leader with the BSP win. BSP’s win occurred on the count of the peculiar quadrangular contest. Mayawati was very smart in putting up Thakurs and Brahmins from the BSP and then transferring all the Dalit votes to them. So, no local leader would have succeeded in such an alliance.”
Sibal, however, was wary of the longevity of the new state government.
:The real question is how she is going to sustain this alliance because the inherent differences will show in the times to come,” Sibal said.
But Yogendra Yadav indicated that it seems both the national parties are completely missing an important point that quadrangular contest has existed in UP since 1989-91. Now, that is the time that the BJP scored its big victories, so then how does the same contest become an explanation of its failure today.
Agreeing with Yadav, Ghose said that BJP doesn’t have an issue that it can project. “It’s echoing in UP that BJP ke pass mudda nahi hai and that is because Ram Mandir is a spent force,” she said.
But Jaitley believes that this is simplifying the problem itself.
“It is not that BJP doesn’t have an issue. Every election has a key issue and in this one the key issue was who is best suited to get rid of the SP and Mulayam Singh Yadav. And the voters thought that BSP’s credentials were perhaps a little better than ours,” he said.
As the debate gathered steam, Yadav explained that the decline of a party begins not when they lose elections after governing for five years.
“It is when they miss the turn to come back to power shows its downfall. The point is that people wanted to get rid of Mulayam Singh Yadav and there were two parties in contention. And it’s evident now that the voters did not choose the BJP,” Yadav said.
So, why was the BJP not the preferred party to defeat SP and why did people choose the BSP?
“Well, the answer is no longer a secret. The BSP and SP have been traditional rivals in UP. Now the electorate found out that our credentials in anti-SP were sharpened up in the last six months. And they found that perhaps the BSP had going at SP for a far longer time. It’s not that we are not aware of the reality,” Jaitley retorted.
And what lessons is the Congress taking from the UP polls and how is it planning to rejuvenate itself?
“We have to wait and watch how this government performs and then we should find the chinks in the armour and go for it,” Khursheed said revealing the party’s future strategies.
But the Congress ran this campaign as an anti-Mulayam one, so the party did not offer itself as an option but all it wanted was the CM out. But the Congress ended up benefiting Mayawati in a strange way.
Khursheed in the manner of a benefactor, which is typical to the Congress said, “It’s quite possible but the mess in UP had to be cleaned up. And once Mulayam goes we might have a chance of becoming an alternative.”
Muslim voters looking beyond Mulayam
One of the big losses that SP has suffered in the UP polls is in Rohilkhand, which is a region known for its Muslim dominance and was a big vote-bank for the party.
But post-elections BSP has taken over SP in Rohilkhand. Now, Doab is another place where Mulayam thought he was very strong but BSP has almost swept over this place too.
So, Mayawati’s vote is not restricted to certain areas but spread across UP. And this also shows that there is no Muslim vote bank anymore that votes for a particular party. Does it mean that the era of the minority vote bank and minority appeasement is a thing of the past?
“There is no question of vote bank politics. Wherever Mayawati has put up a Muslim candidate and people have believed that they want to defeat Mulayam then the Muslims have voted for Mayawati. She has a vote bank that she can transfer to any candidate, outside of the reserved constituencies. So, the Muslims have voted as strategically as the others,” Sibal said.
However, Sardesai explains that there is local anti-incumbency against the Yadavs as they were seen as a dominant community. And so the other communities decided to rebel. Now Mayawati was able to create that kind of coalition, which the Congress and BSP failed.
Thus, this election threw light on the fact that the Ram Mandir and Hindutva are no more issues because the Muslims are no more voting out of fear and they don’t have to rally behind a protector any more.
Mayawati, the kingmaker in national politics?
Mayawati is now sitting at the political high table but can she be the potential ally perhaps for the BJP in future?
Jaitley explained by saying that the situation is not such that the BJP has to go on to extreme propositions and become an ally.
“She is certainly relevant as a politician but going by our past we had a very bitter experience with her. I don’t see her going with any of the broader fronts because she is carving out a root of her own,” Jaitley said.
Deferring from the argument then does the Congress see her supporting the party in the presidential candidate?
Sibal said, “I can’t comment on that. It has to be worked out when a dialogue takes place. But she is an important player in national politics.”
Then what is the national relevance of Mayawati now?
Yogendra Yadav explained that parties, which are similar do not make a good alliance.
“Congress wants to get into Dalit votes so BSP in principle are basically poaching on each other’s votes. It’s Akali and BJP who make for a beautiful alliance,” Yadav said.
So, it’s a problem for either of the two national parties to come together with the BSP. However, Sardesai said that the BJP is a more natural ally of Mayawati.
Furthering the argument, Jaitley said, “Such a situation has not arisen and we don’t have a good record with Mayawati. She has chalked out a road map for herself and she will probably go alone and consolidate herself. And then maybe try and see if there is a hung house and then look for an ally.”
Now we are in the age of the media but the one politician who is not seen on news channels is Mayawati.
According to Sardesai, “She is not a terribly palatable politician. The social justice camps have always reached out to Mayawati. There are serious charges of corruption against her, so she cannot be treated with kid gloves. She is a serious politician but the media never tracked her in the manner that Rahul Gandhi was tracked. SP ran a media campaign through Amitabh Bachchan along with a trail of film stars. But at the end of the day SP doesn’t win and neither did Rahul Gandhi. Mayawati is a classic example of one who has used her hatred towards the media to build her image as a tough no-nonsense leader.”
So, Mayawati hates the media but the people love her. Agreeing Yadav said, “That precisely in an ironic way is what makes the people’s verdict so historic. This victory is like the 1957 EMS Kerala victory or the 1977 Janata Party victory.”
But what is the long-term historic effect? Is she as the BJP and Congress believe a long-term player who will reach far in national politics or she is someone who will diminish in stature over the years?
Concluding the debate, Yadav said in an open-ended manner, “As good historians say that a lot of things we will know only 10 years from now. This could be a transformative year in Indian politics.”
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| Vote share in percentage. |
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