The 2007 UP elections showed that a Dalit-Brahmin coalition could give the BSP a majority, but that coalition was built through sustained campaigning and local mobilisation, and to rebuild that will be a challenge.

The 2007 UP elections showed that a Dalit-Brahmin coalition could give the BSP a majority, but that coalition was built through sustained campaigning and local mobilisation, and to rebuild that will be a challenge.

The 2007 UP elections showed that a Dalit-Brahmin coalition could give the BSP a majority, but that coalition was built through sustained campaigning and local mobilisation, and to rebuild that will be a challenge.

With the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections just six months away, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is aiming to rebuild its organisation and recover the social coalition that brought Mayawati to power in 2007. Though the party has its loyal voters, it is far from the force it was 20 years ago.

The BSP relies on the theme that defined Mayawati’s governments: law and order. For the party, it is its biggest selling point—a claim which many of that generation will attest to, while first-time voters, including those from Gen Z and Gen Alpha, will have no personal recollection of it.

It will therefore be a big challenge for the party to remind the electorate that it plans to bring about the same era.

At a meeting of senior office-bearers and presidents of the party’s state, division, and district units on Monday, Mayawati reviewed preparations across all 75 districts. The focus was on candidate selection and rebuilding the party organisation down to the polling-booth level.

She called for a BSP government based on the “rule of law” and a corruption-free administration. She also accused rival parties of using "saam, daam, dand, bhed (persuasion, incentive, punishment, and division)" to influence voters and criticised the use of freebies and pre-election promises.

The message is part of a larger effort to revive the social coalition that took the BSP to its biggest electoral victory.

In 2007, the party won 206 of the 403 seats with more than 30 per cent of the vote. Mayawati had brought Dalits, Brahmins and other social groups together under the Sarvjan Hitay, Sarvjan Sukhay (welfare for all, happiness for all) slogan.

That coalition has since broken down. The BSP won 80 seats in 2012, 19 in 2017, and just one in 2022. Its vote share also fell from 22.23 per cent in 2017 to 12.88 per cent in 2022.

The BSP’s social coalition has been its biggest strength, but now, the biggest problem for the party is its shrinking hold over Dalit voters. The BJP has made significant gains among non-Jatav Dalits since 2014, helped by its welfare programmes and efforts to build a broader Hindu social coalition. The party is also seeking to retain and expand this support ahead of the 2027 election.

The Samajwadi Party has emerged as another challenge. It has been trying to expand beyond its traditional Yadav-Muslim support base and reach Dalit voters. Its alliance with the Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections also helped it broaden its social appeal.

The Congress, meanwhile, has been seeking to rebuild its support among Dalits, backward classes, and women. This is also reflected in Rahul Gandhi’s emphasis on invoking the iconography of Dalit resistance—attacks on Manusmriti and the agitation over the purification of ground used by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge in Uttarakhand.

This means that the BSP is no longer the only party actively seeking the Dalit vote. For Mayawati, the problem is particularly serious because the Dalit vote was the foundation on which the BSP built its electoral strength.

The movement of non-Jatav Dalits towards the BJP has been visible for years. More worrying for the BSP is the movement of some Jatav voters—traditionally its most dependable support group—towards both the BJP and the SP. The party can no longer assume that its core vote will remain intact.

Mayawati is therefore also looking beyond the Dalit base. The party has again begun talking about Brahmin support and the need for a wider social coalition. This is an old strategy, as the BSP had made a similar attempt before the 2017 and 2022 elections through its Prabuddh Varg outreach programmes.

But here too, the party faces strong competition. The BJP has a well-established upper-caste support base and remains the dominant political force among Brahmins in the state. The SP has also been making a greater effort to reach upper-caste voters as it tries to expand its social base. Akhilesh Yadav had termed that the 'P' in its PDA outreach stood for 'Pandit'.

This leaves the BSP competing for both sides of the coalition it wants to rebuild.

The party insiders claim that organisational condition is another concern. Mayawati has not been campaigning across the state with the intensity seen during her earlier political career. The decline in the party’s electoral performance has also weakened its presence at the grassroots.

Mayawati is trying to address these issues, which will depend on a lot how much she campaigns or if she allows the next generation in her party—her nephew, Akash Anand—to take charge.

In her latest meeting, she also sought to connect the party’s message with younger voters, saying that Gen Z and Gen-Alpha were unhappy with the political system and government policies.

The 2007 elections showed that a Dalit-Brahmin coalition could give the BSP a majority, but that coalition was built through sustained campaigning and local mobilisation. To rebuild that coalition will be a challenge.

The big task before Mayawati is also to rebuild the party’s credibility among Dalits, win back sections that have moved to the BJP and SP, attract Brahmin voters who have largely shifted towards the BJP, and persuade voters that the BSP can once again form a government.

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