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| Edited By: Kartikeya Sharma |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: Jul 18, 2017, 09:12 PM IST
The resignation of BSP president Mayawati from Rajya Sabha is less about urgency of Dalit issues being addressed in the Parliament and more about marginalisation of her party in the Hindi heartland of the country.
Not only did Mayawati get trounced in 2014 Lok Sabha elections but her party was reduced to ashes in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections . BSP ended up with 19 MLAs depriving Mayawati required numbers to get herself nominated to Rajya Sabha on her own strength. To get elected to the Upper House of the Parliament, she would need help from both Samajwadi Party and Congress.
On top of it, BSP’s vote base dwindled in north Indian states reducing the party as a single state player in Indian politics. The reasons listed above are events of past 5 years but what pushed Mayawati into Tuesday’s avatar was a small incident which took place in the dusty hinterland of Saharanpur in western Uttar Pradesh. The event captured national attention but politically it was appropriated by an unheard organisation, called Bhim party.
The Saharanpur violence was not spontaneous nor sudden. It coincided with Yogi Adityanath’s elevation as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. The Dalit and Rajput communities clashed with each other on the issues related to a procession and the route it was supposed to follow. What was very local became a regional issue and subsequently got subsumed under the narrative of increased violence against the Dalits under BJP. One can agree or disagree with the narrative but one thing was evident that in the initial phase Mayawati was absent and a Dalit organisation named Bhim Army led by a lawyer-turned-activist Chandrashekhar hijacked the opposition space and became the dominant voice speaking for Dalits during that incident.
Mayawati did visit Saharanpur but by then Bhim Army had managed to capture all attention as the new kid on the block. Not only did they manage to organise protests in places like Jantar Mantar in the capital but also received significant support from civil society. All this happened in BSP’s stronghold of Western Uttar Pradesh.
Her outrage is also a result of the fact that BSP has shrunk in presence in states like Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. But the worst came from Uttar Pradesh where BJP ran away with non Jatav votebank of Mayawati. It is this receding space Mayawati wants to recapture.
The changing face of Dalit politics:
To top it, her brand of Dalit empowerment has become a thing of past. There was a time when her expensive suits and purses would electrify the community. She projected them as symbol of their empowerment. Over a period of time she became isolated and politically unavailable, building a wall of secrecy around her. Instead of being a leader always available to raise voice for the Dalits and downtrodden, Mayawati was aloof and unavailable. In the name of Dalit memorials across Uttar Pradesh, she planted her own statutes. Instead of building leadership across Dalit community, she projected herself as the sole leader. All these mistakes today have come to haunt the BSP supremo when Dalit politics got reinvented right under her nose. This is the reason why Mayawati has chosen to leave the confines of Rajya Sabha.
2019-last chance for Mayawati's political survival:
Her vote bank is not compatible with Samajwadi Party and her politics has become limited to the state of Uttar Pradesh. It is for this reason Mayawati is angry because the legacy she inherited from Kanshi Ram seems to be slipping slowly away from her. On top of Bhim Army, the challenge has come from an unexpected quarter. BJP by projecting Kovind, a Maha Dalit for the President and Venkaiah Naidu as the Vice President has redefined Dalit-backward politics which was confined to old socialists,Lohiaites and BSP. The younger Dalit voices are more in tune with new politics of BJP or looking for alternatives outside BSP. It is this urgency Mayawati is trying to address.
2019 is a do-or-die battle for her and it is for this Mayawati has come back in an angrier, rabble rousing avatar. Whether she will fade away or make a grand comeback, one will have to wait for the results of 2019 Lok Sabha elections but till then she has her task cut out.
