BSP chief Mayawati continues to hold sway over Dalits and retains the ability to get the Dalits to vote for any candidate that her party backs, regardless of the candidate's caste.
Following the defeat of his wife in the byelections, a smarting Akhilesh Yadav claimed in Lucknow on Thursday that the fight in Uttar Pradesh is now between him and Rahul Gandhi. But, unfortunately for Akhilesh, son of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh, his party, a political powerhouse for over a decade now, is being pushed to the margins.
If the results of the byelections are any indication, the contest appears to have narrowed down to a fight between the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which governs the state, and an energised Congress, which rules at the Centre.
The BSP is on a roll, winning 8 of the 11 seats where byelections in UP were held, and thus recovering from its debacle in the Lok Sabha elections when it won fewer seats than the SP and the Congress. Even allowing for the fact that traditionally byelections tend to favour the party in power, the BSP has done well despite the controversy surrounding the government over the construction of concrete parks and cases against the state government.
BSP chief Mayawati continues to hold sway over Dalits and retains the ability to get the Dalits to vote for any candidate that her party backs, regardless of the candidate's caste.
However, what should worry Mayawati is the steady improvement in the Congress’ fortunes and the consequent realignment of caste equations in the state. A resurgent Congress is expected to be a major threat to the BSP's attempt to put together a rainbow coalition of Dalits, Brahmins and Muslims. The significance of the Congress’ performance lies not so much in the fact that it won the prestigious Firozabad seat or that it managed to wrest Lucknow-West from the BJP but the psychological impact of the victories.
Coming on the heels of its improved performance in the 2009 LS polls, the byelection results have provided the Congress with considerable momentum and reinforced its position as the main opposition to the BSP.
A significant gain of the Congress’ emergence is that it is likely to win over those segments that thus far support its rivals, particularly the SP and the BJP. The drift of the Muslim votes away from the SP to the Congress could become a flood, while the backing of the so-called upper castes, who support the BJP, and the other backward castes who are opposed to the BSP, are expected to gravitate to the Congress.
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