But he has one conviction: “Saheb ka sapna Behnji poora karengi.” (Mayawati will realise the dream of Kanshi Ram, the BSP founder known as Saheb or Manyawar to the BSP cadre.)
LUCKNOW: Ramkumar Raidas (55), a BSP worker from the remote east UP district of Ballia, may not know much about politics or the intricacies of the numbers game of counting MPs being played in Delhi. But he has one conviction: “
Saheb ka sapna Behnji poora karengi.” (Mayawati will realise the dream of Kanshi Ram, the BSP founder known as Saheb or Manyawar to the BSP cadre.)
Ramkumar is not alone. For some strange unspecified reason, hundreds of BSP workers, who have started streaming into Lucknow over the past few days, believe Mayawati will become the country’s prime minister on July 22. Some of them sing songs in praise of Behnji and Saheb. Ramkumar even distributed sweets outside the BSP office here on Sunday morning Most have one refrain: “Saheb used to always tell us that problems of the dalits can be solved only when the BSP assumes power at the Centre.” They refer to the BSP founder’s speeches in which he used to exhort them to work for capturing “Dilli ki gaddi” (the throne in Delhi, that is the PM’s chair).
Though the humble cadres gathering here might not know, sources say BJP leader LK Advani’s meeting with former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee in Delhi on Saturday was to address the question of whether the NDA should back Mayawati for PM in the event of the UPA losing the trust vote on Tuesday.
It is incredible that crucial questions involving the survival of the government, the Left’s strategy to bring down the government or the NDA’s role in it have been sidelined, and it is the two main regional warriors of UP—Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati — who have taken centre stage, one out to save the government, the other sworn to demolishing it.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) seems to have been virtually ripped apart by dissension within its own ranks. On the other hand, Mayawati’s bandwagon is getting crowded with each passing day, with more leaders of smaller outfits willing to accept her as PM-in-making. RLD leader Ajit Singh shocked many by landing up at Mayawati’s Humayun Road residence on Sunday.
“In the new realignment of political forces, all have their interests in joining forces with the BSP,” says a senior political analyst. “Whether it is Chandrashekhar Rao (TRS), Chandrababu Naidu (TDP) or Ajit Singh (RLD), they know the Dalit appeal would help them in their respective regions,” he said.
Under normal circumstances, the UPA would have had the support of 50 of UP’s 80 MPs. But in the present scenario, it might not even get 30. This may be bad news for the UPA. But for the BSP cadres, this could be another reason to rejoice even before July 22.
g_deepak@dnaindia.net
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