Mayawati’s Surprise Entry Into The UP Bypoll Ring — A Strategy To Checkmate Akhilesh’s ‘PDA’ Plank?

An interesting scenario is unfolding in Uttar Pradesh (UP) as Mayawati leads the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to contest all nine assembly seats in the upcoming by-polls on 13 November.

After an uncharacteristically mellow participation in the Lok Sabha (LS) elections in April-June 2024, her sudden electoral activism has surprised everyone.

It is widely believed that her reluctance to actively contest the LS polls led to the historic win of Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP). The SP won 37 seats with 33.59 per cent votes, whereas the BSP drew a blank, though it previously won 10 LS seats in 2019. Curiously, a newly emerging Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Ravan, president of the Azad Samaj Party (ASP) managed to win the Nagina LS seat in western UP.

Mayawati’s traditional approach had been to avoid by-polls, focusing on major electoral contests. In 2014, she chose not to participate in assembly by-polls that resulted from the election of 11 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and one Apna Dal member of the legislative assembly (MLA) to the Lok Sabha.

Similarly, in March 2018, when by-elections were held for the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats vacated by UP CM Yogi Adityanath and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya, she did not field candidates but backed the SP, which won both.

In May 2018, during by-polls for the Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur assembly seats following the deaths of BJP member of the parliament (MP) Hukum Singh and BJP MLA Lokendra Singh Chauhan, the BSP again chose not to contest.

Also, some other moves of Mayawati are equally intriguing. In the recent Lok Sabha elections, when her nephew and political heir Akash Anand, BSP’s National Coordinator, was drawing large crowds and showing promise as a popular leader, Mayawati unexpectedly recalled him and removed him from the position, stating that he needed a bit more maturity.

Many believed that his recall diluted the BSP campaign, leaving the BSP voters in a state of confusion and uncertainty. Some were even suspicious whether she was trying to help the BJP!

It turned out to be just the opposite of that, and the real beneficiary turned out to be Akhilesh Yadav’s SP, as many Dalits voted for SP-Congress candidates. Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi of Congress planted suspicion among Dalit voters, suggesting that Modi’s campaign for char-sau-paar (a majority of over 400 seats) was designed to ‘demolish the Constitution of Babasaheb Ambedkar’ and abolish reservation.

It was very unusual for the Dalits to vote for the SP. Earlier, in the 2019 LS polls and 2022 assembly elections in UP, Dalit voters, including the core BSP supporters (Jatavs) had turned to the BJP in large numbers. This was evident when the BJP won all seven assembly seats in the so-called Dalit capital of UP – Agra, a feat that had not been replicated since the first General Elections in 1951-52 when the Congress won all seats.

Mayawati’s decision to keep a low profile in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections ultimately benefited Akhilesh Yadav's SP instead of the BJP, contrary to initial apprehensions. Likely viewing the upcoming UP by-polls as a chance to rectify this, she may refine her strategy ahead of the 2027 UP Assembly elections.

A Change In Strategy

But why is Mayawati going all-out in UP by-polls and reversing her previous strategy? There could be several reasons.

First, she wants to regain the lost ground among Dalits and re-energise BSP cadres so that Akash Anand can take the party forward and compete with the new rising Dalit star Chandrashekhar Ravan.

Second, it could be to checkmate SP president Akhilesh Yadav’s new social engineering formula — ‘PDA’ — and prevent him from poaching her Dalit constituency further.

Third, it could also mean that Mayawati is trying to make the political contest triangular to make it easier for the BJP to comfortably take on Akhilesh Yadav’s challenge. 

While Chandrashekhar Ravan may be an emerging Dalit leader, Mayawati likely does not see him as a threat to her or her heir’s leadership. She remains deeply rooted in the psyche of the Dalit community, particularly in Uttar Pradesh. Additionally, her intention may not be to assist the BJP by creating a triangular contest, though the unintended consequences of her strategy could inadvertently benefit the BJP.

The most likely reason for her strategy could be to counter Akhilesh Yadav and his ‘PDA’ coalition from gaining ground in Uttar Pradesh. She understands that the Dalits would become insecure with an SP government in office. She had herself suffered that insecurity during SP rule when Mulayam Singh Yadav was the chief minister and the SP goons attacked her in a Lucknow Guest House in 1995. It was BJP leaders who ultimately saved her life.    

Therefore, checking Akhilesh seems to be her primary objective. Her strategy for defeating SP in the 2024 LS polls has impacted Dalit voting behaviour, but not in the manner she intended.

Social Dynamics In Voting

Traditionally, the Dalits had not been voting SP because:

(a) In many cases, Dalits and OBCs maintain a conflictual relationship, positioned next to each other in the social hierarchy, with OBCs often considering themselves superior to Dalits.

(b) OBCs are a land-owning community whereas Dalits usually work in these farmlands.

Thus, for both social and economic reasons, there is a lack of cordiality between the two social denominations, making their political coming together problematic.

This is why, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, even when there was bonhomie between Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav (BSP-SP) and the much-hyped ‘bua-babua’ came together to form a coalition, the rank and file of the BSP did not vote for the SP. As a result, the SP remained stuck at five LS seats.

That experience should have educated Akhilesh about the grassroots reality of social relations between OBCs and Dalits. It must have also alerted Mayawati to the Dalits' ire towards the SP. This is why, despite Akhilesh Yadav's efforts to include Mayawati in the ‘INDIA’ block for the 2024 LS polls, she stoutly refused to join.    

Mayawati’s Goals

By entering the by-polls, Mayawati aims not only to prevent Dalits from moving to the SP but also to stop them from shifting to Chandrashekhar Ravan's new Dalit party. If the BSP performs well, the SP's vote share could potentially drop from over 30 per cent to somewhere in the 20s. This scenario could give Akhilesh Yadav sleepless nights regarding his 'PDA' alliance replicating its Lok Sabha performance in the by-polls and beyond.

The BSP's participation in the by-polls could also impact the SP's Muslim votes. In the virtual absence of the BSP during the 2024 LS elections, Muslims had no choice but to polarise against the BJP and vote for SP-Congress candidates. Typically, the BSP secures about 18 per cent of Muslim votes in UP. 

In the event of BSP putting up a good fight, the SP may end up losing that many Muslim votes. The BSP has given 2/9 tickets to Muslims: Shahnazar from Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar) and Rafatullah from Kunderki (Moradabad).

As Mayawati aggressively approaches the by-elections, the electoral contest will likely become triangular. This scenario is expected to lead to fragmentation among various social denominations. Dalits may split between the BSP and the BJP, OBCs could be divided between the SP and the BJP, while the Muslim community may divide its support between the SP and the BSP.

A miniscule segment of Muslims may also vote for the BJP. The BJP gets around 8-9 per cent Muslim votes in UP.

If the BSP’s renewed focus on the Bahujan vote consolidates its hitherto frittering Dalit constituency, it is most likely to harm the ‘PDA’ of Akhilesh with adverse electoral consequences for the SP.