After 2024 Lok Sabha rout, BSP returns to basics to reclaim lost voters

By lashing out at BJP and reinstating her nephew Akash Anand, Mayawati is trying to resurrect party fortunes. The byelections will test her strategy.

Mayawati’s nephew and BSP’s national coordinator Akash Anand at an election rally at Nagina constituency, Bijnor district, in western Uttar Pradesh, on April 6. | Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) poster at an event in Lucknow held in the first week of July featured the popular slogan coined by its founder, Kanshi Ram, in the 1980s: “Jiski Jitni Sankya Bhaari, Uski Utni Hissedaari” (alluding to the representation of each caste according to its proportion in the population). It seemed to suggest that party supremo Mayawati, faced with an existential crisis after failing to win even a single seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, is planning a move to disrupt the status quo. Some other moves by the BSP are also indicators of how Mayawati is trying to go back to the basics and redraw the party’s “bahujan” strategy.

After being accused by many commentators of being the BJP’s “B Team” and back-door supporter, Mayawati appears to be trying to redeem her image. She recently lashed out at the Uttar Pradesh government for its inept handling of the July 2 Hathras stampede at the Bhole Baba satsang that led to the death of more than 120 people, most of whom were Dalits. She questioned the “clean chit” given to Bhole Baba in the case and cautioned the poor and the underprivileged against turning to superstition to solve their problems. Instead, she said, they should gain power by joining hands with the BSP and follow the path shown by Babasaheb Ambedkar.

On July 15, Mayawati held a review meeting in New Delhi to revive the party in BJP-ruled Uttarakhand. At the meeting, she said: “The people in Uttarakhand are unhappy with the State government’s wrong policies and its hateful work culture.” The next day, she accused the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh of putting on a show instead of taking serious steps to address the lack of basic amenities in government schools. The BSP’s protests following the killing of its Tamil Nadu chief, K. Armstrong, were also indicative of a party getting back into aggressive mode after a long time.

A look at the new district committees that the BSP has formed this month points to a renewed strategy to rebuild the party from the grassroots and win back the core supporters who openly moved away from the party in the 2024 general election. Reminiscent of Kanshi Ram’s tactics, these committees have been formed with a clear focus on inducting members from Dalit castes, with coordinators recruited for the All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF, the precursor to the BSP) and the party’s Bahujan Volunteer Force (BVF).

Significantly, Mayawati has brought back her nephew Akash Anand as her heir and the national convenor of the party just 47 days after he was divested of both responsibilities in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election in May. At that time, it was rumoured that she had evicted Anand because of his campaign speeches targeting the BJP. One reason being cited for Anand’s reinstatement is the victory of the young Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan in the SC reserved seat of Nagina despite both Mayawati and Anand addressing rallies there. Azad polled 5.1 lakh votes, defeating his closest BJP rival by nearly 1.5 lakh votes, while the BSP candidate stood fourth with just 13,272 votes. The BSP won this seat in 2019 in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP). Azad is widely touted to be the next big Dalit leader, challenging the BSP’s hegemony.

The challenge before the party, therefore, is not only to win back Brahmin, Muslim, and non-Yadav backward class votes, a strategy that propelled it to power in 2007 but to also win back the nearly 21 per cent Dalit vote, 12 per cent of this being Jatav, which is Mayawati’s caste.

Diminishing sway

In his recent book Behenji: The Rise and Fall of Mayawati, Ajay Bose, an expert on Dalit politics, wrote that Mayawati’s inability to stitch together a viable alternative social alliance after the Brahmins withdrew their support and her growing disconnect with the fast-changing politics on the ground have been key factors behind her diminishing sway. “With the collapse of Mayawati’s social engineering project, the prospects of a Dalit party being able to promote the interests of the community do not look very likely…. Dalits today are looking beyond Behenji and her brand of politics.”

Highlights

• After failing to win a single seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, BSP supremo Mayawati is trying to revamp the party’s image.
• It has formed new district committees to rebuild the party from the grassroots and win back core supporters.
• Shehas brought back her nephew Akash Anand as her heir and the national convener of the party, to project the face of a young leader.

On July 11, within days of taking office again, Anand finalised a tie-up between the BSP and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) to contest 37 of the 90 Assembly seats in the Haryana Assembly election that is due to be held before October. In his speeches, Anand has targeted both the Congress and the BJP in the State and expressed confidence that the INLD-BSP coalition will be able to form a strong government based on equality for all communities and castes. The BSP was in an alliance with the INLD in 2018, but the partnership survived only for nine months before it was called off ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

Mayawati began experimenting with alliances with regional parties in 2018, beginning with the INLD, the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka, and Ajit Jogi’s Janata Congress in Chhattisgarh. The BSP joined hands with the SP first in 1993 and then in 2019. In between, in 1995, it did a stint with the BJP. It also formed alliances with the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab and the Gondwana Gantantra Party in Madhya Pradesh in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

The Congress has been wooing the BSP since 2019. With the decline in Mayawati’s fortunes, opposition parties of the INDIA bloc are hopeful that Mayawati might now be open to alliance possibilities.

The Congress has asked Mayawati to join the INDIA bloc to defeat the BJP in the upcoming Assembly byelection for 10 seats in the State—necessitated by the resignation of 9 MLAs following their election to the Lok Sabha and the disqualification of a tenth for being charged in criminal proceedings—and in the 2027 Assembly election. According to Congress leader Pramod Tiwari, had the BSP joined the INDIA bloc this time, it would have won all 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati at the SP-BSP-RLD alliance’s first joint rally in Deoband in Uttar Pradesh on April 7, 2019. | Photo Credit: SANJAY KANOJIA

However, Mayawati has not abandoned her policy of staying equidistant from both the Congress and the BJP, at least nominally. She has been less critical of the SP of late, which the latter has reciprocated. The SP Lok Sabha member R.K. Chaudhary’s recent visit to the BSP office in New Delhi set off speculation about a political realignment. Chaudhary, a prominent Dalit leader, worked with both Kanshi Ram and Mayawati in the BSP’s formative years. It is also rumoured that the former BSP veteran Swami Prasad Maurya could return to the party. Maurya once held several positions, including State party chief and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, from 1996 to 2016. Maurya’s daughter, Sanghmitra Gautam, a BJP Lok Sabha member from Badaun, was denied a ticket this election. Maurya contested as an Independent from Kushinagar under the Shoshit Samaj Party banner after resigning as an MLC from the SP in February. Earlier, he did a stint in the BJP for six years. He has frequently made the BJP uncomfortable with his Hindutva remarks, and the doors of the SP are also closed to him. The BSP is his only option.

Efforts to revamp its image

The BSP is also trying to revamp its image with the Muslim community after its voters favoured the SP in the recent election. A number of prominent leaders from the community, such as Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Afzal Ansari, and Danish Ali, who had either left the BSP or were expelled from the party, joined the Congress or the SP. Imran Masood, who joined the BSP in October 2022, won the election on the Congress ticket this time.

“This time, it is a matter of life and death for the BSP,” said Manindra Thakur, an associate professor at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU, Delhi. “The 2027 Assembly election is the last chance for its revival. I feel it can still get back its core votes. The infrastructure of Dalit and underprivileged support created by Kanshi Ram for the BSP is still in place. The BSP support base is angry, disillusioned, and disheartened, but there is still a possibility for the party’s revival. Contrary to popular perception, I feel the shifting of Dalit votes to the Samajwadi Party in this election is not a permanent phenomenon, and the BSP can get it back.”

According to Thakur, people did not mind Kanshi Ram’s authoritarian behaviour because he had a certain legitimacy. “Mayawati lacks the legitimacy Kanshi Ram had but continues her authoritarian approach with supporters and voters and has alienated them. If she improves on that, she can regain the lost votes.”

Thakur believes also that it is in the interest of the BJP to allow space for the BSP to grow since a marginalised Mayawati does not bode well for it. The BJP will lose more seats if the contest is directly between it and the SP. “The BJP will like a strong BSP rather than a weak BSP in Uttar Pradesh,” Thakur said.

That is why the imminent byelections for 10 seats could be a litmus test for Mayawati. Clearly, the BSP also thinks so. While it generally refrains from contesting byelections, it has decided to field candidates in all seats this time. The BSP’s functionaries believe the party will bounce back because it has an ideological base and is home to Dalits, and that this does not get changed by the fact that a few Dalits won the election from different parties. They argue that Anand’s comeback has enthused the party’s young voters.

Brave words, but it is undeniable that the decline of the BSP, which won 206 of the 403 Assembly seats and secured 36.7 per cent of the votes in the 2007 Assembly election, has been dismal. It won only one seat in the 2022 Assembly election with 12.7 per cent of the votes, down from 19.2 per cent votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha election when it allied with the SP. This time around, it polled 9.3 per cent of the votes.

After three successive Assembly election defeats, in 2012, 2017, and 2022, political somersaults from “bahujan” to “sarvajan” and strident slogans ranging from “Tilak tarazu aur talwar, inko maro joothe char” (thrash the Brahmins, Vaishyas, and Thakurs with shoes) to “Brahmin shankh bajayega, haathi badhta jaayega” (As the Brahmin blows the conch, the elephant [the BSP’s symbol] will march forward), the BSP is staring at an uncertain future.

The SP is the clear beneficiary of the BJP’s decline this time, but whether this is permanent or whether some political machination or miracle will bring the BSP back to life remains to be seen. It is also uncertain how much charisma Akash Anand has to wear the thorny BSP crown.