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Updated: May 08, 2018 10:04 IST

It was a forgettable birthday.

Celebrations were muted when Bahujan Samaj Party cadre gathered on January 15 for chief Mayawati’s birthday, an annual event when supporters send donations — a fair measure of loyalty and party support.

Usually the party would raise a few crores of rupees if not more, but this year only a few lakhs were collected, a party insider said on condition of anonymity, as the BSP doesn’t share the data.

The mood soured further when the party didn’t find many takers for its tickets for the 2019 Lok Sabha election. At a party gathering, Mayawati was told aspirants were not too hopeful of the BSP’s prospects, party leaders privy to the meeting said.

A string of defeats that started with the party losing power in 2012 to the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh had pushed the BSP to the margins.

It couldn’t even send a single representative to the Lok Sabha in 2014 and last year, it got only 19 seats in the 403-member UP assembly that was swept by the BJP, which aggressively wooed Dalits, the BSP’s support base. The writing was on the wall: Change or perish.

Change is good

Mayawati has stayed away from poll alliances but the BJP’s growing clout has forced a rethink.

The 62-year-old took everyone by surprise by backing bitter rival, the Samajwadi Party, in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls in March.

Mayawati of the past would have stayed away from a by-election but she wanted to test the alliance and wasn’t disappointed.

The ruling BJP lost the seats held by chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya, who are now members of the legislative council.

The BSP-SP alliance had changed the electoral scenario in the state and dealt a blow to the BJP which was counting on a split in anti-BJP votes for a victory in the 2019 election, BSP’s Uttar Pradesh chief Ramachal Rajbhar said.

“The alliance has consolidated its hold over the Dalit-Muslim-backward caste voters, making it tough for the BJP to repeat the 2014 performance,” he said, referring to 71 seats the BJP won out of 80 in Uttar Pradesh.

And that is the formula Mayawati is working on to take on the BJP in 2019.

If it works, it is a formidable combination. Muslims account for 19% of UP’s population, Dalits 21%, Yadavs 7%, and non-Yadav OBCs 32%.

UP, which has the highest number of Lok Sabha segments in country, has 17 seats reserved for scheduled castes and the BJP won all of them in 2014.

A BSP leader who didn’t wish to be named said it was Behenji, as Mayawati is known to her supporters, who took the initiative to join hands with the SP.

The decision came after she analysed the party’s performance in the assembly elections. In 200 seats, BSP-SP candidates were neck and neck with the BJP. To prevent a split of votes, she decided to go with the SP, the leader said.

Her social engineering (upper caste-Dalit combination) won Uttar Pradesh for her in 2007, now it was time for alliance building.

In the 2014 and 2017 polls, upper caste voters — Brahmins and Thakurs — shifted allegiance to the BJP.

Consolidating the core was vital.

Mayawati appointed Dalit leaders such as Ashok Siddharth, Vir Singh, Bhimrao Ambedkar, Akilesh Ambedkar, Raja Ram, Atar Singh and Sunil Kumar Chittor as zonal coordinators.

The move was not only aimed at countering the BJP, which has accused her of sidelining the community, but also sending a message that Dalits would get top position in the organisation.

“The message is clear for the BJP leadership that Mayawati will fight for each Dalit vote,” SK Dewedi, a teacher with Lucknow University.

Her playbook

The BSP plans to counter the BJP’s Dalit outreach by organising camps and reviving bhaichara (brotherhood) committees in Dalit-dominated villages.

“Zonal coordinators have been asked to hold meetings to caution the Dalit community against BJP’s designs,” BSP leader Sukhdev Rajbhar said.

The BJP’s only concern was Dalit votes and not their welfare, he said, adding the BSP was working for the weaker sections since its inception in 1984.

The BSP was seen as a Dalit party and the bhaichara committees had done well to widen the party’s base among the backward as well as the upper castes, political observer Sanjay Singh said.

Mayawati had activated bhaichara committees to wean the backward communities away from the BJP, he said.

The BJP’s booth-level committees played an important role in its 2014 and 2017 wins.

The BSP is trying to do something similar for grassroots support.

Zonal coordinators have been directed to set up booth committees in all the 403 assembly segments and submit a list to Mayawati, a BSP leader said.

Aware of the challenge posed by Dalit outfits such as the Bhim Army led by young leader Chandrashekhar, Mayawati has decided to promote young people. She has appointed her nephew, Aakash, an MBA from London, for organisational activities.

After a string of desertions, she is packing the party with loyalists. Her brother, Anand Kumar, is the national vice president. She also purged people considered close to BSP leaders who switched side to the BJP.

Beyond UP

Uttar Pradesh will always be central to Mayawati’s plans but she is looking to position the BSP as a challenger to the BJP in 2019.

She has tied up with the Janata Dal (Secular) and is campaigning in Karnataka, which votes for a new assembly on May 12. She is also finalising names for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assembly elections due this year end. The party will contest next year’s election in Haryana in alliance with Indian National Lok Dal.

The party has small pockets of influence in these states but Mayawati wants to send a message that the BSP is the only regional outfit with a pan-India presence, a senior party leader said.

It is not going to be easy to take on the BJP, which has a well-oiled election machine that has been set in motion for the 2019 battle.

The BJP is holding Dalit Yatras across UP, its leaders are camping in villages and highlighting the welfare and development schemes launched by the state government for weaker sections. The BSP is yet to get started.

The BJP is big on public connect but the BSP leader is not much of a people’s person. Her interactions are limited to public meetings that she holds occasionally. Her last public appearance was in Saharanpur in May 2017 during a clash between upper castes and Dalits.

The BJP had a battery of leaders to campaign but in the BSP, Mayawati was the lone star campaigner, Dalit scholar RK Gautam said.

The influence of national general secretary, SC Mishra, was limited to Brahmins. Naseemuddin Siddiqui, once the Muslim face of the BSP, is now with the Congress.

Mayawati was counting on the SP to help her plug the gaps and take on the might of the BJP, Gautam said.