In a moment of desperation due to the steadily losing grip on her dalit vote bank as evidenced from the 2014 general elections and more recently in the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, BSP chief Mayawati announced in the Rajya Sabha last week that she was resigning from the house.
The specious reason—she was not allowed to take up the cause of the oppressed dalits on the floor of the house. It is apparent the former UP CM is stressed as the country's 21 per cent of dalits, a sizeable vote bank, was slipping out of her hands and she needs to get her act together in the run up to the 2019 general elections.
Though her staunch supporters insist that her vote bank remains intact, it is not borne out in the wake of BJP's resounding victory recently in the assembly elections in UP after a gap of 17 years. The lotus party's gambit of wooing the most backward classes among the dalits this time around paid it rich dividends.
On the other hand, Mayawati is struggling to be politically relevant as the viability of her BSP has suffered a setback. With her term in the Rajya Sabha coming to an end in another eight months, she realises she must make all out efforts to woo her constituents to her fold amid increasing competition from others, including the BJP.
She has to improve her profile politically which has steadily been on the downslide. This has been so for the last three years since the last general elections with Narendra Modi becoming the prime minister along with ensuring that the saffron brigade secured a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha. This has happened for the first time since the lotus party was formed in 1980.
The opposition did not lag behind in offering Mayawati moral support. With only 19 seats in the 403-member UP assembly, the BSP lacks the numbers to re-elect the former UP chief minister to the Rajya Sabha. RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav came to her aid saying he can help her secure another term in the Rajya Sabha from Bihar. Mayawati might have something to fall back upon in worse case scenario but it is crucial for her to get the dalits rally behind her for her political survival.
Several dalit organisations held rallies at the Jantar Mantar extending their support to Mayawati. This is against the backdrop of young dalit leaders like Chandrasekhar in UP and Jignesh Mavani in Gujarat gaining prominence which is becoming increasingly worrisome for Mayawati.
She is believed to be actively considering contesting for the Lok Sabha from Phulpur, a constituency represented by the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
With the heat getting to her, Mayawati met her senior party leaders on Sunday to draw up an outreach programme across the length and breadth of Uttar Pradesh, aimed at exposing the BJP governments both at the Centre as well as UP.
It was decided to hold a volunteer meetings on the 18th of every month beginning from September. This date was chosen as it was on July 18 that she resigned from the Rajya Sabha as her request to speak beyond three minutes allotted to her was rejected.
"The entire ruling party including ministers did not allow me to speak in Parliament which showed their casteist mindset. I was raising the atrocities on the dalits, poor and other oppressed classes in Saharanpur," she told reporters.
Apart from BSP's drubbing in the UP assembly elections, Mayawati's leadership model has been found to be wanting. There was a time that despite all her leadership flaws, the BJP national leadership found Mayawati useful.
Within three months of the BJP's sweep in UP social tension and other problems have arisen in villages with dalits and other minorities being at the receiving end. On her part, Mayawati continues to be the most well known face of dalit identity and aspirations.
The BJP mandate in UP does not automatically offer it the leadership of dalit community. At the same time Mayawati's pitiful position in the current UP assembly is a reality. Also, the BSP's steady decline among its constituents might be tough to overturn.
