Out of BJP line of fire in UP fray, Mayawati faces its ‘B-team’ salvo from INDIA after Akash removal
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)'s supremo Mayawati has not been in the crosshairs of the ruling BJP in its campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh.
This has been seen in the rallies of the key BJP campaigners – including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, national party president J P Nadda, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, and state party president Bhupendra Chaudhary – which they have been addressing across the state for several weeks.
These speeches by top BJP leaders have signalled that for them the Opposition camp involves only the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) and their leaders, especially Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav.
In their rallies in UP so far, PM Modi, Shah and Adityanath have targeted Congress leaders – Sonia Gandhi, Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi and party chief Mallikarjun Kharge – as well as SP president Akhilesh Yadav for not attending the Ram Temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22 and for not visiting the Temple since. However, none of them has criticised Mayawati in this regard so far.
In contrast, in their campaign in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls – when the SP and the BSP had forged a pre-poll alliance – the BJP's star campaigners including PM Modi, Shah and Adityanath had coined phrases like “Bua-Babua” or “Bua-Bhatija” to go after the then allies Mayawati and Akhilesh.
The BJP camp then used to rake up allegations of “gundagardi” against the previous SP governments and corruption charges against the former BSP regime.
The outcome of the polls saw the BJP's tally dipping to 62 seats (out of the state's 80 seats) from 71 in 2014. The BSP won 10 seats and the SP five. Mayawati however broke the alliance with Akhilesh soon after the elections.
In the campaign for the 2022 UP Assembly polls too, the BJP leaders attacked Mayawati, but it was milder than their 2019 attack.
This time, in her election rallies for the BSP candidates across UP, Mayawati has been criticising the BJP along with the Congress and the SP.
However, Mayawati's nephew Akash Anand, 28, in his electioneering in the initial phases, appeared to keep his guns trained on the BJP, slamming the government over unemployment, poor state of education, and use of bulldozers, among other things.
Akash's speeches might have created a resonance among a section of the Dalit youths, who started calling him a “BSP firebrand”, but he was abruptly sent back to Delhi by the party leadership, even as all his upcoming rallies in different constituencies in the later phases were cancelled.
This occurred soon after Akash was booked by the Sitapur police for allegedly promoting hatred and enmity, among other charges under sections of the IPC and the Representation of the People Act. In his address at a rally in Sitapur on April 28, Akash purportedly called the BJP government “gaddaron ki sarkar” (government of traitors).
Subsequently, Mayawati removed Akash as her political heir and the party national coordinator “until he attains maturity”. She had named him her successor barely six months ago.
The BJP leaders refrained from commenting on Akash's remarks as well as Mayawati's action against him.
Akhilesh reacted to Mayawati's move through a post on X, stating that “Whatever steps the BSP has taken for a big change in its organisation is their internal matter. But the majority of BSP supporters are voting for INDIA bloc".
The SP chief also urged the BSP's supporters not to “waste” their votes. In his campaign, he has now started appealing to the “Bahujan samaj” too while seeking votes for his party candidates.
While BJP insiders maintain that their top party leaders' bid to avoid attacking Mayawati is a part of their strategy to woo Dalit sub-castes like Chamaar (Jatavs in west UP), Dhobi, Paasi, Ahirwaar, Kureel, Dohre, Dom, Dusadh, Kharwar and Mushar – who play a significant role in over 40 constituencies of central and eastern UP – Mayawati has been facing allegations from the INDIA camp of being allegedly the “BJP's B-team” over her “soft stance” towards the ruling party, especially after her sacking of Akash.
Of the 80 BSP candidates, Mayawati has fielded 20 Muslim faces.
However, the BSP's Firozabad candidate Chaudhary Basheer has raised questions on her Muslim-Dalit formula. In a recent video that surfaced after the third phase of voting on May 7, Basheer purportedly accepts his defeat, saying that the Muslim community has voted for the SP and not for him.
The SP general secretary Ramgopal Yadav's son Akshay is the candidate in the Firozabad seat dominated by the Muslim and Yadav voters.
Mayawati has fielded the Muslim candidates on seats which are dominated by the Muslim-Dalit or Muslim-OBC (especially Yadav) voters.
The seats with such caste equations include Moradabad, Etah, Badaun, Aonla, Pilibhit, Kannauj, Ambedkar Nagar, Shravasti. Domariyaganj, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj and Azamgarh. The SP has not fielded a Muslim face in any of these seats. The BSP candidates in these seats are however
not locked in straight fights either with the BJP or the SP. Thus, observers say, the BSP's strategy of gaining upper hand through the Muslim-Dalit or Muslim-OBC equations do not appear to have worked.
Also, keeping Akash out of the campaign trail has affected the BSP adversely since it may not be possible for Mayawati to canvass alone for the party candidates in the remaining 41 constituencies bound for polls in the last three phases.
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