Aditi Phadnis: Can Mayawati storm back to power in UP?

Her win would be less about her views on social reform and more with sins of omission of her rivals

Polling in Sitapur concluded earlier this week. There is an interesting factoid about this region. It has the highest concentration of Dalits among all districts in Uttar Pradesh, constituting as much as 32 per cent of the population. In the 2012 Assembly elections, the turnout was 65.6 per cent. This time, at 68.9 per cent, it is a little higher but the highest turnout in UP so far. In 2012, Mayawati got 32 per cent of the vote but just two seats from this region. The Samajwadi Party got 34 per cent of the vote but seven seats. 

This can only mean one of two things: that the Dalits have disowned Mayawati entirely and voters of other parties have eclipsed the Dalits in turning out to vote; or that the Dalits are returning to Mayawati to save her.

These past few elections have not been good to her. In the Assembly elections of 2012 she managed to get 26 per cent of the vote and 80 out of 403 seats. But clocking zero seats in the Lok Sabha in 2014 despite the third-largest vote share in UP was her “all is lost” moment. That was the Modi wave and few could hold their own. The question is: Will 2017 be a chance to redeem her future? Or will this election seal it?

Nobody can be written off in politics. At a youthful 90-something, Narayan Dutt Tiwari still believes in public service and in pursuit of that goal, he recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But Mayawati will have to seriously review her leadership strategies if her party fails to emerge as the single largest in this election.

In theory, Mayawati should have everything going for her. Everyone in UP barring the Yadavs acknowledges that law and order is in a parlous state. In her tenure as chief minister, Mayawati ran a tough administration, something the Dalits recall with nostalgia to this day. But time doesn’t stand still. Recognising that he had to modernise a police force that was — by and large — recruited by chacha Shivpal, Chief Minister and Mayawati’s principal adversary Akhilesh Yadav has launched a major reform in the way UP is policed by creating two parallel streams — one that takes down the complaint, the other that does the investigation. The two are brought together by a faceless information technology interface, so interference is reduced. Caste bias can never be eliminated but it can be reduced and minimised. Soon, Mayawati might find that rivals have been quick to catch up on her performance.

Social engineering experiments have to be negotiated. They cannot be extrapolated on a community mechanically. Mayawati tried the famed experiment of a caste coalition of Brahmins and Dalits, going so far as to say that she would ensure job reservation for the poor among the upper caste. This baffled the Dalits, who thought that if they have to form an alliance with the upper castes, why do it via Mayawati? Why not directly with Narendra Modi himself? We now know that a large percentage of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh voted for the BJP in 2014. 

And then, Mayawati simply did not heed the larger Dalit project: like protecting the rights of Dalit women (who are exploited thrice over —by men of their own caste, men of other castes and as Dalits). Even while in government, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had no cogent thoughts on reservation for Dalits in higher education and in the private sector. And there was no movement on giving Dalits the rights on the land they till. (Dalits hold titles to land but not its physical ownership.)  

There is no evidence that her stint out of power has led to any thinking on these issues. Instead, an alliance with Muslims suggests the BSP’s continued belief that an alliance with the marginalised will ensure numbers (or turnout, in this case) and numbers will lead to power.

Demonetisation has had the worst possible impact on Dalits and Muslims, especially weaver communities of UP. But the focus of her attack is not on the impoverishment of these communities by cruel and unthinking policies of the Union government but the threats from gau rakshaks (cow protectors) and love jihadists. 

It is possible that despite all this, Mayawati could storm back to power in UP. But if that happens, it will have less to do with what she is thinking and saying about social reform and more because of the sins of omission of her rivals.