A doomed relationship: Why Mayawati called off alliance with Akhilesh

Mayawati's decision to break alliance with SP is triggered by 'social contradictions', fear of losing Dalit votes

Midway into the Lok Sabha polls, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) President Mayawati had unwittingly let out signals that the mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) with its arch rival Samajwadi Party (SP) was unlikely to last long when she rebuked SP workers for their relentless sloganeering at a joint rally in Firozabad district on April 20.

Even as SP President Akhilesh Yadav was seated on the dais, a miffed Mayawati told SP workers to desist from raising slogans while she was speaking, and instead emulate disciplined BSP cadres.

The SP-BSP mahagathbandhan, which was touted as a formidable combination against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, was virtually routed in Uttar Pradesh, with the alliance partners managing to win only five and 10 seats, respectively. They had forged an alliance by arithmetically combining their respective vote share in the state's population, comprising Dalits and backwards (22 per cent and 45 per cent, respectively). However, the purported concoction of ‘chemistry’ by the national party trumped their inorganic caste ‘arithmetic’. The BJP, along with its ally Apna Dal (S), swept the polls, winning 64 of the 80 parliamentary seats in the state.

Last month, Mayawati had hinted that the honeymoon between the alliance partners was over because the SP had failed to transfer its votes to the BSP. She surmised that since Akhilesh’s wife Dimple and cousin Dharmendra Yadav lost from Kannuaj and Badaun parliamentary seats, respectively, it indicated the SP had lost hold on its traditional Yadav vote bank.

The Dalit czarina finally confirmed the long-anticipated break-up via a Twitter feed on June 24, claiming it was difficult to defeat the BJP by joining hands with the SP and that the BSP would, henceforth, contest all elections by going it alone.

While superfluously the trigger for the break-up was the defeat of the grand alliance, the real factor was the realisation in the BSP that ‘social contradictions’ between the core vote banks of the two parties were deeply entrenched at the grassroots, and they were much difficult to harmonise by simply announcing a tie-up.

It is well acknowledged that Dalit and backward communities are seen at loggerheads in the state's rural milieu, owing to various socio-economic factors related to agriculture, sharecropping, farm labour, etc. Over time, such frictions have resulted in a large number of police and court cases.

The BSP was apprehensive of these ‘social contradictions’ becoming counterproductive in due course and hurting it politically by weaning away its core constituency. It also feared that its core-Jatav constituency could digress to other parties, especially the BJP, if there was an impression of the alliance holding good for future elections. During recent electioneering, workers of the two parties were seen confronting each other at various places.

“The message that percolated about the mahagathbandhan in the state was rather negative, especially among non-Yadav backward castes and Dalits, who anticipated that if the alliance was successful, it would further consolidate the position of the Yadav community on the political canvas of the state. This triggered an exodus of non-Yadav and non-Jatav Dalit votes to the BJP,” said a senior BSP leader.
 

At the same time, the defeat of Yadav family members from their traditional strongholds made the BSP postulate that the socialist outfit had lost control, especially with party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav facing health issues and his younger brother Shivpal already fallen out with Akhilesh.

“We (the BSP) contested only 38 seats in UP and won 10 seats. If we had contested all the 80 seats, we would have won more seats on our own. The SP not only failed to transfer its votes to the BSP but also could not even ensure victories of their key candidates,” he observed.

“Social contractions between the SP and the BSP are too strong to be addressed by merely announcing a pre-poll alliance. It would need a longer time period to show any perceptible result on the ground and Mayawati, it seems, is not ready to wait any longer,” noted Badri Narayan, director of G B Pant Social Science Institute, even as he criticised her for abruptly snapping the tie-up and not giving it time to mature and show results.

Now, Mayawati has been moving fast on her new roadmap and appointed his brother Anand Kumar and nephew Akash Anand in key party posts of vice president and national coordinator, respectively, thus putting in an informal succession plan in the BSP, a party which had always frowned at nepotism and family controlled outfits.

The BSP has announced to contest all the 12 Assembly seats in the state for which by-elections are due in the coming months. Since the party has traditionally kept aloof of such by-elections, the decision to participate in these mini-polls is to test the waters and gauge the party’s preparations ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections.

“The decision of Mayawati to appoint her family members in key party posts has sent out a negative message to BSP workers and it will only weaken the Bahujan movement in the long run,” Narayan averred.

Meanwhile, the party has decided to work on its time-tested template of focusing on Dalits, Muslims and Brahmins which delivered the results in 2007 Assembly polls, when the party came to power with a majority.