Sunday’s massive gathering at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, marked the beginning of the party’s foray into at least half-a-dozen states other than UP.
LUCKNOW: Sunday’s massive gathering at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, was not just another successful rally for the BSP and its feisty supremo ‘Behn’ Mayawati. In a way, it marked the beginning of the party’s foray into at least half-a-dozen states other than Uttar Pradesh (UP) as part of a well-concerted effort to acquire a pan-Indian identity.
“We definitely do not want to remain limited to UP,” says BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra. “At this stage, I can only say that for the Lok Sabha elections, we are targeting six-seven states which could be crucial for our party’s electoral prospects in the long run,” he says.
Mishra’s statement is not rhetoric. The party has actually put its words into action. BSP sources say Mayawati’s target is to garner at least 60 seats in the next Lok Sabha elections, so that she could play kingmaker during government-formation.
The states on the BSP’s radar, top-notch party sources reveal, are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
Maharashtra is on top of Mayawati’s wish-list. A senior BSP leader told DNA Behnji has often underscored the state’s importance in strategy sessions, saying: “Politically, Delhi is crucial, but Mumbai is the commercial capital of the country, and sooner or later we must capture it.”
Mayawati feels for electoral battles to be won, the party organisation needs to be bankrolled well. Already, booth-level committees have been set up in 35 districts covering 288 Vidhan Sabha and 48 Lok Sabha constituencies. The party is targeting the 40 per cent population that has migrated there from the north.
The BSP has pinpointed the states it wants to focus on after extensive deliberations. “We do not want to waste our energy and resources. The idea is to focus on lesser states for higher returns,” says Naseemuddin Siddiqui, the party’s Muslim face and a key strategist.
The BSP has great expectations from Maharashtra as it is the karmabhoomi of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s movement for equal rights to Dalits. “This state is witnessing a BSP wave because in the past, leaders of Dalit Panthers or the Republican Party of India have mostly been like commodities on sale. Their credentials and commitment have always been doubtful,” says Gangadhar Gade, ex-transport minister of Maharashtra and a one-time top RPI leader, who recently joined the BSP.
The Dalit Panther party has already merged with the BSP, whose vijay raths to commemmorate Mayawati’s UP victory have already toured all districts of Maharashtra.
Tamil Nadu is another important target for the BSP. With close to 20 per cent Dalit population and the history of Periyar’s anti-Brahmin movement, this southern state is the ideal breeding ground for the BSP. For the first time, the party has opened its state head office here and Mayawati will address a rally in Chennai on December 30.
A BSP source revealed an interesting bit – that the slogans “Vote hamara raj tumhara nahin chalega, nahin chalega” and
“Jiski jitni sankhya bhaari uski utni bhagidaari” have been translated into Telugu. Cadre camps, being organised at the district level, are echo with these slogans.
In the north, Punjab, Delhi and Haryana, all of which have sizeable Dalit electorate, are on Behnji’s political radar. Punjab, with the highest Dalit population in the country (28.31 per cent), is BSP founder Kanshi Ram’s birth place (Ropar) and it is here that the BSP made its electoral debut in December 1984.
Though Bihar and Madhya Pradesh give a proximity advantage to the BSP, they promise to be tough nuts. In Bihar, the BSP’s core votebank (Chamar) already has a leader in Congress’ Meira Kumar. Besides, apart from the BJP and Congress, there are already several players, viz. Laloo
Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav, in the fray.
In MP, the BSP has a marginal presence in areas bordering UP –Satna, Reva and Gwalior. Though it won two MPs in 1996 with 8.7 per cent vote and 11 MLAs (11.39 per cent vote) in 1998, the party has suffered a severe setback with the expulsion of the state chief Phool Singh Baraiyya just before the 2003 Assembly election.
Whatever the limitations, Mayawati has set the BSP bandwagon rolling.
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