Editorial: Descent in limbo

Despite a promising start with a potential to emerge as a pan-India force, Mayawati’s political journey appears to be going off track

Four decades after Kanshi Ram founded the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to fight for the political empowerment of the Dalit community, his successor Mayawati is squandering away the powerful legacy. Despite a promising start with a potential to emerge as a pan-India force, her political journey appears to be going off track with no clarity on goals and strategies. Not long ago, Mayawati was seen as a contender for the Prime Minister’s post. But her fall has been swift and irreversible and coincided with the rise of the BJP in her home State of Uttar Pradesh. The recent desertions from the party come as no surprise, given the state of limbo that it finds itself in. Ambedkarnagar MP Ritesh Pandey quit the party to join the BJP while two more are in talks with the saffron party. Besides, another three MPs are set to switch to Congress and other parties ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The BSP, which won ten LS seats in the 2019 elections, is fast slipping into oblivion. From a party that was once a formidable player in Uttar Pradesh politics credited with successful social engineering experiments, the BSP has now been reduced to a lame duck player, with Mayawati ceding much of the party’s traditional support base to the BJP. More puzzling is her indifference to the exits. Most BSP MPs apprehend a setback to their electoral fortunes in the wake of the contest turning into a direct square-off between the BJP-led NDA and the SP-Congress combine, leaving little ground for the BSP.

The biggest failure of the BSP, since Kanshi Ram handed over the reins to Mayawati nearly 22 years ago, is that it has not encouraged second-rung leadership nor did it allow grassroots leaders to emerge. The growing dictatorial attitude of Mayawati and her coterie, corruption among party leaders, absence of internal democracy and a clear disconnect with the people’s issues are responsible for the party’s decline. Its debacle shows that the Dalit community can no longer be taken for granted for votes by any party and that they yearn for genuine social and political empowerment. History gave Mayawati, a self-made woman, an opportunity to change the fate of Dalits and the marginalised, but she has squandered it away. None of her political strategies seems to be helping in resurrecting her crumbling career, while the BJP, through some smart social engineering, is clearly chipping away at her citadel. The anointment of her 28-year-old nephew Akash Anand as her political successor reflects a desperate move on the part of Mayawati to infuse new energy into the party. His elevation has, however, not gone down well with the party veterans. In the bargain, the BSP, which once claimed to represent alternative politics, has finally fallen into a familiar trap of dynastic politics.