An eerie silence envelops the largely deserted Lucknow office of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), just one month after the 2022 UP assembly election results. Party president Mayawati has barred party members from talking to the media. Three men who maintain visitor records are sitting together, looking very bored. It is noon, but the office has not had a single visitor today. 바카라The election is over, so why are you here? Now nobody comes here unless there is a meeting or a press conference,바카라 says one of the men. Rewind to 2007, when BSP had formed the government with a full majority on the back of a strong cadre base and was known for its alliances with several intermediate and upper caste groups. This year, it won just one seat in the assembly elections and is facing mass desertion.
The Slow And Steady Decline Of BSP
Once considered a future PM, Mayawati바카라s cadre and Dalit voters seem to have lost faith in the BSP
In 1973, BSP founder Kanshi Ram first constituted the Backward and Minority Community Employees Federation (BAMCEF) in an attempt to create a network of educated lower caste people and a Dalit consciousness that would distinguish the Dalit-Bahujan movement from other upper-caste dominated parties. After BAMCEF, Kanshi Ram formed Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4) in 1981 as a 바카라cultural wing바카라 in Punjab to mobilise the Dalit youth, students and women, before it expanded in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal and Haryana. Both BAMCEF and DS4 played a crucial role in establishing the BSP cadre base in North India.
In the 1980s, when the Congress started to decline in Uttar Pradesh, leaving behind a vacuum, the BSP, formed in 1984, rose as an alternative for Dalits in the state. Kanshi Ram selected leaders from various SC and OBC groups, including Mayawati, R.K. Chaudhary, Sukhdeo Rajbhar, Barkhu Ram Verma, Phool Singh Bariya, Gandhi Azad and Sonelal Patel. As a party that identified with the Dalit cause, the BSP often had to face many prejudices. Since its inception, the BSP never shied away from forging alliances with parties holding diametrically opposite ideologies. Kanshi Ram forged an alliance with BJP in 1995. Mayawati also formed an alliance with Samajwadi Party (SP) in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Such temporary social alliances complemented its cadre base. It now had twin engines to propel its electoral prospects바카라dedicated cadres and influential persons of other castes brought into its fold as part of expedient alliances. In a recent article for The India Forum, Gilles Verniers, assistant professor of Political Science at Ashoka University, writes: 바카라The strategy devised by the then-leader Kanshi Ram was to build local alliances with relevant dominant castes, and to combine the strength of BSP바카라s appeal among Dalits with the vote-getting capacity of candidates recruited externally.바카라 However, many BSP workers grew unhappy about the choice of candidates, and accused the party of giving tickets to the rich. 바카라Kanshi Ram used to say, 바카라Do not sell your vote. Your vote is important바카라. That helped BSP to strengthen its cadre,바카라 says Professor Badri Narayan of G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. It made illiterate lower caste voters realise the value of their vote. Slogans like, 바카라Thakur, Brahmin, Bania Chhor, Baki Sab Hai DS4 (except Thakurs, Brahmins and Bania, everyone is DS4)바카라 and 바카라Vote hamara, Raj tumhara, Nahi chalega, Nahi chalega (Our vote, but your rule won바카라t work)바카라바카라were at the centre of Dalit-Bahujan mobilisation.
From 1990, the 바카라Ayodhya Issue바카라 helped the BJP mobilise around Hindutva. Also, Mandal politics brought parties like SP to prominence. A phase appeared in UP politics when all parties were expanding on the declining base of the Congress. The shrinking the Congress support base among the Dalit and backward castes established the BSP as a secular 바카라lower-caste party, hostile to upper castes, with aim of uplifting Dalits,바카라 writes academic Sudha Pai, in her book, Dalit Assertion: Oxford India Short Introductions.
바카라From 2007-09, Mayawati was viewed as a potential prime minister candidate,바카라 notes senior journalist Ajoy Bose, a close observer of Dalit politics. However, temporary alliances soon ran out of steam as her five-year term failed to forge solidarity among castes or widen her cadre base. 바카라The disenchantment was not just among Brahmins but also among Dalits. Her leadership saw a sharp fall in BSP바카라s support base,바카라 adds Bose. Since last year, BSP has been running a 바카라Brahmin outreach programme바카라 to forge a social alliance with the Brahmin community바카라similar to what it had done in 2007. 바카라But forging social alliances with upper castes was not in Kanshi Ram바카라s plan,바카라 says a senior BSP leader. The disenchantment also enabled smaller caste parties like Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) and Nishad Party to eat into the BSP바카라s base. Leaders like O.P. Rajbhar, Dara Singh Chauhan and Swami Prasad Maurya left for greener pastures.
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Bose believes a new 바카라fluid바카라 kind of Indian politics is emerging. 바카라Dalit youth바카라s trust in BSP is dwindling,바카라 he observes. Emerging leaders too are not interested. Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar launched his Azad Samaj Party on the 86th birth anniversary of Kanshi Ram and accused the BSP of going 바카라soft바카라 against the Centre. This deepened a rift in Dalit leadership. In 2019, former BSP MLA Rajendra Gudha accused the BSP of selling tickets for money; an accusation that resurfaced in the 2022 election. Bose says, 바카라Mayawati decides the candidate on the basis of how much they can give to the party fund, and whether this candidate can manage their own campaign.바카라 Several leaders deserted the party. Those who have stayed on such as Barkhu Ram Verma, Gandhi Azad, and Sukhdeo Rajbhar, have lost appeal among the cadre.
BSP바카라s decline has been consistent. In 2012, the party got 25.9 per cent of the votes and 80 seats. In 2017, it only won 19 seats with a 22.2 per cent vote share. Now, in 2022, its vote share stands at a precarious 12.9 per cent.
(This appeared in the print edition as "Elephantine Entropy")
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