The Congress just does not know how to stop the Maya juggernaut. With 10 states going to polls this year and a general election staring in the face, the party is groping for a strategy to contain the BSP.
NEW DELHI: The Congress just does not know how to stop the Maya juggernaut. With 10 states going to polls this year and a general election staring in the face, the party is groping for a strategy to contain the BSP, even as Mayawati is on a pan-India mission to poach on the Congress vote bank as well as disgruntled leaders.
Sources said Mayawati has sent feelers to senior Congress minister Narayan Rane in Maharashtra and MP Prakash, senior Janata Dal (S) rebel, who is also being wooed by the Congress and the BJP.
The BSP chief also tried to forge an electoral understanding with Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi, but the latter declined. Mayawati, however, managed to wean away former Union minister A Narendra and a rebel Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who was discharged from hospital on Sunday following a brief illness, convened a meeting of party general secretaries at her residence on Wednesday to take stock of the political situation for the first time after the party’s debacle in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections.
Even as the party is divided on the extent of damage the BSP can inflict on the Congress with some leaders ruling out Mayawati to pose a major pan-India challenge, others feel the threat is real.
Party sources said Gandhi will have a series of strategy sessions with senior leaders to draw up a plan to contain the BSP in the coming days. Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Rita Bahuguna said Rahul Gandhi is embarking on a series of public meetings in the state starting with Bundelkhand on January 17 to take on the BSP government. The Congress is also planning camps at in every district to mobilise its “lazy” cadre and rebuild party machinery.
Bahuguna said on January 15, the party would organise a “march through the poverty-stricken areas of Bundelkhand where farmers are committing suicide”.
As a counter, the BSP has launched its own campaign. In several places hoardings have sprung up blaming the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for terror attacks and farmers’ woes.
A section in the Congress is not in favour of confronting the BSP as the party is already confronting the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BJP. They don’t want the Congress to alienate Mayawati.
A senior Congress leader argued that the Mayawati threat was “media creation and exaggerated.” “Her so-called social engineering (Dalit-Brahmin) is just a slogan. It’s an artificial alliance bound to backfire. Signs of caste tension are already there in UP. In the recent Balia Lok Sabha bypoll, the BSP failed to repeat its success formula,” he said.
He said the BSP won UP on a negative vote as people somehow wanted to get rid of the SP government.
The senior leader was confident that in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Mayawati will not be able to make inroads as Dalits are already empowered there. It would be difficult for the BSP to find space in ideology-driven and cadre-based states, he said.
Despite striving, Mayawati has not been able to find a foothold in Bihar because of the CPIML (Liberation), which has a sizeable Dalit base, and OBC leaders such as Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. But what about Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi?
Even if the BSP does not win any Lok Sabha seat in these states, Mayawati could dent Congress prospects, thereby bolstering the BJP.
k_benedict@dnaindia.net
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