Mayawati looking to recast party template, revive her old social alliance

Interestingly, Mayawati had tried to experiment by joining hands with the SP, her bitter rival, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls

In 2007, Newsweek magazine had profiled Mayawati, then Uttar Pradesh (UP) chief minister, as among eight global women leaders who had broken the glass ceiling despite all odds.

The honour wasn’t astray, though.

In the summer of that year, Mayawati had marshalled her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to victory in the UP Assembly polls by winning 206 seats in the 403-seat Vidhan Sabha.

The BSP topped the vote percentage tally with more than a 30 per cent share. She had crafted the party’s new “social engineering” template, combining its staple Dalit-Muslim constituency with the Brahmins to sew up a formidable