In Uttar Pradesh, political acrimony goes deep and personal. Enmeshed in complex caste equations as it is, it makes any possibility of a political compromise between parties a difficult ask. Add to it the deep mutual suspicion the leaders harbour for each other. So it does not surprise that Mayawati would refuse Mulayam Singh’s offer of a political alliance to take on the BJP. However, her decision is not just emotion; it is based on pragmatic assessment of the ground realities too.
The idea kicked off in Bihar when, staring at the prospect of losing political relevance in the state, by extension in national politics, after the resurgence of the BJP in the state old enemies Lalu and Nitish buried acrimony to take on the common foe together. Their coming together, they felt, could serve as the template for a similar realignment of secular parties in politically critical Uttar Pradesh. Lalu was wiling to play peacemaker between Mulayam and Mayawati.
Image courtesy: Ibnlive
What the leaders failed to take into account is that UP is a different ball game altogether. Lalu and Nitish have been on the same side of the secular-communal divide despite being part of rival formations for decades. This is not true of Mayawati and Mulayam. The former has been an outsider in the communalisation of Uttar Pradesh politics while the latter is seen to a beneficiary of it. Whenever forces get active to polarise Hindu votes, the Samajwadi Party becomes a gainer by rebound. Muslim votes get polarised in its favour. That is what made Mulayam’s party indifferent to communal developments in the state. Mayawati, on the other hand, did well electorally when the state remained communally calm.
However, the general election results and the BJP’s spectacular resurgence have delivered a jolt to Mulayam’s complacent arrangement. The Muslims, so far believed to be the Samajwadi Party’s core vote bank besides the Yadavs, appear to have seen through the game and are no more willing to be silent sufferers of the devious political designs of the party. Mayawati realises Mulayam is more desperate at the moment than she is. An alliance favours him more than it does her. Moreover, it could halt any potential swing of Muslim voters to her party in the coming elections. With this calculation in mind she has been refusing the proposal for alliance from the Congress for sometime now.
Despite the poor show in the general elections — the BSP drew a blank — her party managed to retain its core Dalit votes. If the Muslims decide to switch sides, she can be score big with the Dalit-Muslim combination. The BJP is targeting her Dalit base at the moment but she does not appear perturbed. If Samajwadi Party collapses under the weight of its own follies, she will be the only challenger to the BJP in the state.
An alliance with the SP is likely to cause disturbance in her core vote base, which has already shown signs of unease with her leadership. In a state where OBCs and Dalits exist in a state of conflict, if not war, any alliance with a party known to be the representative of the former is bound to be counterproductive. Her sarvajan experiment in the general elections was a disaster. Many of her Dalit supporters moved to the BJP as response. She won’t make any move that would antagonise Dalit groupings loyal to her. She would hold on to them while expecting others to gravitate towards her party.
However, that said Mayawati’s political moves have always confounded experts. We may not have heard the last word from her on any alliance yet.
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