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In 2017, UPs big riddle - where is Mayawati?

opinion Updated: Jan 31, 2017 10:00 IST

Prashant Jha
Hindustan Times
If Mayawati loses in 2017, it may mark the beginning of the end of her political
career - for it will be extraordinarily difficult for her to keep both the BSP
organisation and her voters intact
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Ten years after she stormed to power with an outright majority in Indias
biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, where is Mayawati?
That is the big question of 2017. Opinion polls show her as third in a
triangular contest. As Akhilesh Yadav has been in the news for the Samajwadi
Partys internal feud or the tie up with Congress, or BJP has been the subject
of scrutiny for demonetisation or ticket distribution or communal campaign, the
BSP has been conspicuously absent from the discourse.
Does this mean that the BSP does not matter in UP elections?
Not at all. Anyone who jumps to that conclusion is ignoring both recent
political history and the electoral record of Indias tallest Dalit leader. At

the peak of the Narendra Modi wave in UP, the BSP still got close to 20% of the
vote.
Mayawati is a contender in UP 2017. People remember the good law and order under
her with nostalgia. She is also strongest in west UP - which is where the
elections begin, and a wave this side could extend into the rest of the state.
Her biggest asset is the headway she has got in terms of time, for she narrowed
down on tickets almost two years ago in many seats and in a centralised party,
there was little space for rebels to disrupt it. Her candidates have been on the
ground, even as others squabble. And she has the arithmetic, based on careful
social and demographic calculations.
Read: Will Mayawatis Mukhtar gamble get her Muslim vote?
But what is also true is that this is Mayawatis toughest election. For the BJP,
in this election, the big challenge is that it has no agenda, and no local
leaders. For the SP-Congress combine, the big challenge is it has no time, and
its campaigning has barely started. But for the BSP, the challenge is even
bigger, for Mayawati is now a mass leader without any mass contact. She is also
the first preference of only her core vote, and has done little to build a base
among other communities. All that the BSP has going for it is arithmetic.
This is also an election she cannot afford to lose.
Battle for survival
If Akhilesh loses, he still has time and can return to power. If BJP loses,
there will be internal convulsions, questions over Modis demonetisation and
Amit Shahs electoral management, but the party will still remain Indias
dominant political force.
But if Mayawati loses, it may mark the beginning of the end of her political
career - for it will be extraordinarily difficult for her to keep both the BSP
organisation and her voters intact. By the time next elections come around, she
would have been out of power for over 10 years in the state; depleted strength
in the assembly would also mean depleted strength in the Rajya Sabha - remember
she has no Lok Sabha seats left. Indian politics is ruthless. Unless a political
leader is in power, and is in a position to deliver goods to supporters through
patronage, sustaining an organisation is tough.
Read: Mayawati will become UP CM for the fifth time: BSP general secy in Noida
Most importantly, it will open up her loyal vote base to penetration by others.
The Dalit vote is no longer as static and fixed as it used to be. In 2014, there
is enough evidence to conclude that a section of even her Jatav vote moved to
BJP; Modi himself is making a strong push for the Dalit constituency; other
leaders may well emerge if the base feels Mayawatis time is up. The fact that
Mayawati has not allowed a second generation of Dalit leaders to emerge in her
own party may come back to haunt her, for they will seek opportunities elsewhere
or become political entrepreneurs themselves.
Yet, given the stakes, the sense of urgency in the BSP campaign is somewhat
missing.
Mass leader, no mass contact

Can one be a mass leader without being in touch with masses at all?
In that answer lies the future of Mayawatis fortunes.

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It is perhaps a somewhat unfair question, since there is no doubt that Mayawati

is one of Indias most remarkable politicians who has risen from the ground.
There is also no doubt that she has, slowly and systematically, helped build the
BSP organisation - brick by brick, aiding her mentor Kanshi Ram. On cycles in
towns in west UP, in rural areas which were not connected by roads, sleeping
nights in uncomfortable, even unsafe settings, Mayawatis past work among the
masses - and the most deprived and oppressed of them - cannot be questioned.
From 1984, ever since BSP was formed, Mayawati has been a part of what was once
a transformative social movement. For close to three decades, she has been in
electoral politics. The mass credentials of such a leader must be respected.
Read: SP promotes communal politics, dont ally with it: Mayawati to Congress
But it is also true that this avatar of Mayawati is now the past.
Todays Mayawati prefers Delhi and Lucknow, and barely visits districts when she
is in opposition. Todays Mayawati does not believe in street agitations or
social movements, happy at best to take a formalistic position in Parliament if
an issue concerning her constituency crops up.
But most intriguingly for a politician, todays Mayawati does not talk to too
many people. She keeps in touch with a very limited set, brought to her through
select intermediaries. Her communication is confined to those within her party
organisation - and this makes her dependent on a very limited information pool.
This also makes her prone to poor judgment. For obvious reasons, the only group
that can gain access to her are businessmen willing to contribute to the partys
funds.
Mayawati also seems to believe that political communication is overrated. The
BSP has deeply legitimate grievances about how the media ignores them; it is
also correct in pointing to the skewed nature of ownership, representation and
coverage of channels and the flaws in opinion polls. But there is a way to
correct this - by relentlessly engaging with the media and feeding it news and
its narrative. This is missing. This means that on core issues, the floating
constituency has no clue what she thinks. Even her core voter - who did not
consume media when BSP started out - is now an avid consumer of the media and
misses seeing its party and leader in action. One avenue of mass contact is
severely constrained.
And that is why UPs voters - many of them overwhelmingly young - do not quite

know Mayawati. They have not heard her speeches in rallies which are few and far
between; she is not a presence in their daily lives through television
appearances; she is not a familiar, intimate presence as they move around town
or the state except through the parks and statues she has built. At a time when
elections are turning presidential, and the voter wants to know leaders and see
and understand every facet of their lives, this invisibility and this lack of
contact with the larger public sphere is a big handicap for BSP.
First preference of only the base
This also perhaps explains why Mayawati is the first preference only for her
core voters of Jatavs - and not for any other social constituency in the state.
In travels across west and east UP, even those who were willing to consider
Mayawati, saw her as their back up option.
Read: Mayawatis UP election strategy: Focus on note ban, SP family feud
This is most clear in the case of Muslims. The BSP is trying to carve out a
coalition of Dalits and Muslims. But while this may be exciting for those
interested in subaltern politics, it is important to remember that this
coalition is not being built on a common political platform; it is not based on
a social movement or any ideological groundwork. Mayawati has rarely spoken on
issues that matter to minorities. Except some engagement with self proclaimed
community representatives, through her close aide Naseemuddin Siddiqui, she has
not even spent time in Muslim quarters of UPs cities and villages in the run up
to this election.
Instead, the only way in which she hopes to build this coalition is by
distributing tickets to 100 Muslim candidates. Representation is important - and
perhaps the most crucial signifier of a partys commitment to that group. And
for Muslims, BSP is an option today because of these tickets. But this still
pales in comparison to the SP, which is their first choice - because Akhilesh is
seen to speak for them, perceived to be committed to their security (despite
Muzaffarnagar), and as the real secular challenger to BJP. Mayawati, they
remember, has been with the BJP in the past.
The Muslim outreach gives us a clue to Mayawatis style. For her, politics is
now distilled to arithmetic - and that is it. Have your base vote, give a ticket
to a candidate from another caste or religion, expect him to bring the votes of
his community, expect your loyalists to vote for the party symbol, and there you
have an electoral winner. Politics, in this imagination, requires little else.
Whether this is enough or whether the UP voter seeks politics beyond this narrow
calculus will determine the future of Mayawati and Dalit politics in India.
prashant.jha1@hindustantimes.com

tags
Mayawati
BSP

Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh Elections
SP

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headingfive"><a href=" +item.websiteURL+ "> +item.headLine+ </a></div> ;
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