By Ratan Mani Lal

The Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2022 are going to be a test for the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party as it attempts to break the jinx since 1985 of a ruling party failing to win a second term. For Samajwadi Party, it is a test to see whether former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav retains his popularity seen in the 2012 result. But more significantly, it is a test for the Bahujan Samaj Party to test whether its leader Mayawati retains her sway over the core voter base of Dalits.

In the 2017 election, the BSP won 19 seats – its lowest tally since 1993. But yet, remarkably its share of popular vote stood at 22.2 per cent, marginally higher than the SP’s 21.8 per cent and 47 seats. It also reflected the fact that the BSP contested all 403 seats while the SP was in the fray only in 298. The BSP was the most favoured party among its core Dalit voter base, especially Jatavs, supported by the fact that it got 62 per cent votes of the Scheduled Castes community.

This base has historically remained intact because it is not tied to the number the party wins, but to the fact that Mayawati represents a phenomenon tied to the identity and dignity of this class hitherto deprived of an equal treatment. The Jatavs despite being a dominant sub-group among the Scheduled Castes, have remained marginalized for long and Mayawati is credited with giving them back their dignity and political power.

Caste combination

The added effort by Mayawati to draw Brahmins together is another factor that might go in her favour, as the community’s experience of being with BSP in 2007-2012 has been mutually beneficial, even though it did not lead her party to victory in the 2012 election. The BSP launched its Brahmin outreach campaign with a Prabuddh Samaj Goshthi in Ayodhya on July 23, led by the party’s general secretary and Brahmin face Satish Chandra Mishra.

Remarkably, he promised at the gathering that if the party came to power, it would expedite the construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. Mayawati’s claim that the campaign would awaken the Brahmin community “once again” on the lines of the support in 2007 has so far not antagonized her core voter base. It is to be noted that in 2007, BSP had come to power in the state after winning 206 of the 403 constituencies and 30 per cent of the total votes.

Mayawati expects Dalit voters of Uttar Pradesh to largely remain with her party despite the failures of 2012 and 2017 assembly elections.

The Jatav Dalits, comprising about 54 per cent of the state’s Dalit population and nine percent of the total population, have consistently voted for the BSP, and there is no reason for them to deviate from this electoral behavior in 2022. She and Mishra have been at pains to explain that the coming together of state’s 13 per cent Brahmin population and the 23 per cent Dalit population can be a formidable combination.

Loss of trust

It is preposterous to believe that Mayawati will lose her core voter base to Samajwadi Party as to her core supporters  the memories of the 1995 incident in Lucknow are still fresh, when Samajwadi Party workers had tried to seriously harm Mayawati as the BSP-SP alliance reached a chaotic end. Yet, she let bygones be bygones and repeated her party’s electoral alliance in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, but failed to draw SP’s supporters even as Jatavs listened to Mayawati’s call and voted for SP candidates wherever they were in a position to do so.

With that experience, the feeling among Jatavs has become stronger that their votes and rights are safe only in the hands of Mayawati.

Despite the poor electoral performance of BSP, its base among the Jatav community does not appear fragmented. For the BSP, the 2022 elections are a do-or-die battle. Jatavs realize that this time Mayawati needs to post a respectable result just to convey a message to the SP that they have a voice, a face and they matter. In addition, if the BSP’s performance in 2022 is commendable, it just might lead to bigger Jatav support in future, and the Mayawati era could see signs of revival.

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(Ratan Mani Lal is a senior journalist and political analyst. Views expressed are personal and exclusive to India Narrative)