18 Muslims, 14 OBCs, 10 Brahmins — BSP’s candidate selection could hurt INDIA bloc more than NDA

18 Muslims, 14 OBCs, 10 Brahmins — BSP’s candidate selection could hurt INDIA bloc more than NDA

Lucknow: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded several ‘upper-caste’ and Muslim candidates in the Lok Sabha elections, looking at the winnability factor, but its social engineering, if political experts are to be believed, might hurt the INDIA bloc more than the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

While the Mayawati-led BSP’s Muslim candidates have the potential to harm the prospects of their INDIA bloc counterparts, the party this time has also fielded a significant number of ‘upper-caste’ (UC) candidates, who might take away a few votes of the NDA candidates.

However, political experts said that several of its UC candidates were “non-entities”, which, along with the BSP’s declining fortunes, signals that the party may not make any significant dent in the BJP vote bank, which has been loyal in past elections.

The BSP, so far, has declared 64 candidates — 14 from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 14 Dalits, 18 Muslims, and 18 UC candidates. Of the 18 UC candidates, 10 are Brahmins and five are Thakurs.

The Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) has attacked the BSP, alleging that it is hand-in-glove with the BJP. When the BSP changed its OBC candidate in the Mainpuri seat to field a Yadav candidate against the SP’s candidate — Akhilesh’s wife, Dimple Yadav — the SP’s accusations turned louder.

A look at the 64 candidates fielded by the BSP revealed Muslim candidates in 18 seats in Saharanpur, Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Amroha, Aonla, Pilibhit, Lucknow, Budaun, Varanasi, Etah, Domariyaganj, Kannauj, Gorakhpur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Firozabad and Bhadohi.

The Muslim candidates in Saharanpur, Sambhal, Amroha, and Rampur will fight fellow Muslims fielded by the INDIA bloc.

The other constituencies where the BSP has fielded Muslim candidates also have sizeable Muslim populations, and the party could impact results there.

The BSP has fielded Brahmin candidates in 10 seats, including Farrukhabad, Banda, Dhaurahra, Ayodhya, Basti, Aligarh, Unnao, Mirzapur, Fatehpur Sikri and Akbarpur, five Thakur candidates from Gautam Buddha Nagar, Ghazipur, Ghaziabad, Kanpur and Kairana, and three other UC candidates from Meerut, Kheri, and Jaunpur.

The party has fielded 14 OBCs in Mainpuri, Bareilly, Sultanpur, Ballia, Azamgarh, Ghosi, Chandauli, Mathura, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Baghpat, Phoolpur, Sitapur and Fatehpur. It has fielded Dalits only in the 14 reserved seats of Shahjahanpur, Roberstganj, Mohanlalganj, Kaushambi, Lalganj, Hathras, Agra, Etawah, Jalaun, Nagina, Bulandshahr, Machhlishahr, Hardoi and Misrikh.

BSP Member of Legislative Council Bhimrao Ambedkar told ThePrint that BSP, a national party, has always given tickets, be it to Brahmins, Muslims, Dalits or OBCs, based on the proportion of a community in a population.

“Brahmins voted for our party in 2007 and have supported them BSP always, but the community was misled by others using ‘saam daam dand-bhed (persuasion, temptation, punishment, and division)’,” he said.

The BSP has revised its slogan from ‘sarvjan hitaye, sarvjan sukhaye (for the welfare of all, for the happiness of all)‘ to ‘bahujan hitaye, bahujan sukhaye (for the welfare of the majority, for the happiness of the majority)’, which now finds mention in its statements to the press.

Bahujan is an umbrella term for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs, and other minorities.

Political experts said the change in messaging is for the Dalits — the BSP’s core voters — while it is fielding UC candidates.

“The BSP’s attempt at a Dalit-Brahmin coalition is nothing new. Earlier too, with her confidant Satish Mishra, Mayawati tried to bring Brahmins and Dalits together, which was successful in 2007. With the party on a downslide, it hopes to combine Brahmins with the 20 per cent Dalit population, which forms the core BSP voter. In view of Brahmins or Thakurs being denied tickets by other parties, BSP hopes to club the Dalit vote with this section and attempt to win,” Mirza Asmer Beg, a professor of political science at Aligarh Muslim University, told ThePrint.

“The situation, however, has changed (compared to before), and the BJP has made inroads even among the BSP’s Jatav voters,” he said.

‘UC votes unlikely to shift’

With the BSP fielding the greatest number of Muslim candidates among all parties, political experts said they are most likely to dent the vote share of the INDIA alliance.

The SP has alleged that the BSP is helping the BJP by dividing the Muslim votes and that the BSP changed its Mainpuri candidate at the BJP’s behest.

Speaking to ThePrint, SP spokesperson I.P. Singh repeated a charge often levelled at the BSP — that it is acting as the “B-team of the BJP”.

“For the BSP, fighting the BJP is not the priority, but fighting the INDIA alliance, especially the SP, is. But,the public has understood which leader is working on whose signal. Several former backward, Dalit, Muslim leaders of BSP have joined SP, and not a single vote will go waste this time,” Singh told ThePrint.

Experts, however, said the SP-Congress votes will likely get split more than the BJP votes since the latter commands a loyal vote base.

“While it is true that its Muslim candidates may dent the vote share of INDIA alliance candidates, it (BSP) has fielded upper-caste candidates like Thakurs in west UP seats, sensing the anger within the community towards the BJP,” Shashikant Pandey, head of the political science department at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, told ThePrint.

“It (BSP) has similarly fielded a Tyagi candidate in Meerut as Tyagis have been angry with the BJP,” he said.

About the BSP’s Brahmin candidates, Beg said the Brahmin voters have traditionally been voting for the BJP in past elections, and it is unlikely that there will be a shift in their voting pattern, but their ability to attract voters counts.

He said BSP candidates are more likely to harm the INDIA bloc than the BJP because the Congress and SP do not have a loyal voter base. On the other hand, Brahmins, Thakurs, and OBCs like Yadavs have voted for the BJP in past elections, he added.

“The BJP’s advantage is that it’s in power. In past elections, it has been observed — upper-caste votes go to the BJP. So, even ifthe  BSP fields a Brahmin or Thakur, the voters would rather vote for a better candidate, who has a possibility of winning, from their community,” he said.

(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)