Managing politics of realignment: Tough job for Mayawati

Dhananjay Tripathi

New Delhi

Mon, 02 Jun 2008: 

In UP politics commitment, ideology, or of vision, is not an issue, in the pure theoretical terms for individuals it has become a way to attain power. The power is the ultimate goal for politicians of UP and they can easily switch from one party to another just for their own personal gain.

A flood of lears coming to BSP is the new reality and they are coming from all the mainstream parties.

Akhilesh Das from Congress, Naresh Agarwal and Dani Ram Verma from Samajwadi Party are the recent increase for the BSP (also see article Congress Flirt with SP: Love is not Easy on this website).

All of these politician are eyeing on the coming Parliamentary elections and BSP very much giving full support to their objective by providing them tickets for the contest in Parliamentary elections.

For BSP getting more seats in Parliament is directly related to its bargaining power in the 15th Parliament and in past it’s been seen that Mayawati did not have any problem in shaking hands with anyone be it BJP or Congress. Any number from 40-50 plus will put her in a leading role and she might get the chance to be the next king maker of this country.

The current political situation of both Congress and BJP are not very impressive and both the alliance NDA and UPA are in hitch to get absolute majority. If NDA and UPA fail to get absolute majority, any party with the above-mentioned figures can play a vital role. If Mayawati is thinking in that trend which look but obvious from the strategy of BSP then in pure political lingo it is not bad.

The million-dollar question is that how she will manage the selfish political bunch that does not have any commitment for anyone. One must not forget that BSP’s growth in UP is much to do with the hard work of Late. Kanshi Ram who started BSP with a social movement for the Dalit community and succeeded in making it a political force in a state like UP.

BSP has a solid social backing of Dalit community in UP and this is the reason why it survived in slippery politics of UP where no big- weight is loyal to anyone. This base is still intact and is behind Mayawati, and this is her biggest strength.

No political party can survive without a consolidated backing of a mass and this is evident in UP where except BSP and SP (which has substantial backing of OBC) no other political party has any mass support. The strength of BSP is also the critical point and it needs to be preserved if BSP wants to grow more powerful in UP and outside the state. The more selfish politicians will make the citadel of BSP weak and Mayawati plus her team has to be very vigilant.

In making these politicians (who are crossing the party line) happy she cannot afford to make any compromise on the ground level with her loyalists, majority of them are from deprived section. This is the political and social base of BSP and after a period, every section’s aspiration will grow. If the political formation, which has grown from its supports, cannot afford to neglect the aspiration otherwise it works in a negative direction.

The political up and down of Laloo Prasad Yadav is the classic example of this phenomenon. Initially Laloo led the fight of social justice in Bihar, established the identity of much reject, and suppressed deprived section in the society. Laloo reaped the political benefits and for fifteen years he was the unchallenged leader in Bihar, but in the meanwhile he forgot that people have other aspirations like development, employment, economic prosperity etc.

On this front Laloo remained ignorant and this proved costly for his political career in Bihar. Laloo, the master artisan of Indian politics just made this mistake. Even today due to his earlier struggles, he had a support base in Bihar, but not much enough to get the CM post in Bihar.

In UP also, apart from all the things, two issues are very important for Mayawati. One, She should keep her flock together, especially in a context when outsiders joining her and getting prize for it. The challenge is to accommodate enough of own base in the political alignment, which is not an easy task. The second issue is that Mayawati got a popular support in UP, but how she will cater the aspiration of everyone who voted for her is very significant. Law and order cannot be the only magic- wand, which will always work, development and matching her actions with the imaginations of youth is the key.

Keeping space for selfish politicians can be of use in the short run but if that is done on the cost of BSP’s base it would be fatal in long run. Mayawati manages some very tough political games in the past lets see how she plays her cards in the coming time.