As Brahmin experiment fails in poll test, Dalit vote bank back in Maya’s focus

Lucknow: The BSP, which once loudly raised the slogan of “Brahmin shankh bajayega, haathi aage jaayega (the Brahmin will blow the conch and the elephant will march forward)”, seems to be disillusioned with the community.

Mayawati’s party is once again focusing on its core votebase Dalits, perhaps this is the reason why many veteran Brahmin leaders of the party seem to be marginalized or are coming under the target of disciplinary action.

For the BSP, which formed a thumping majority government in 2007 through the Dalit-Brahmin social engineering formula, the subsequent elections brought only a message of despair. After defeating the SP in 2012, Mayawati had every hope of getting success in the next elections. But in 2017, the BSP was reduced to just 19 seats with 22.24 percent votes.

The 2022 assembly elections of UP proved to be a tremendous setback for the BSP. While the party’s vote share slipped down to 13 per cent, it could get only one assembly seat. This was the most disappointing performance of the party established by Kanshi Ram after the year 1993. In these elections, the BJP made a visible dent in the party’s core voters, Dalits.

According to political experts, the 2017 election results were a wake-up call for Mayawati. But she didn’t take it seriously Due to the shifting of Dalit base voters, BSP is facing many hurdles. Vote share is falling badly, the trend of electoral defeat continues. At present, the problem of maintaining representation in the Legislature and Parliament has arisen before the party.

These disappointing developments have led to the disenchantment of the BSP towards the Brahmin community.

The party has once again started implementing the strategy of gaining the trust of the Dalit voters. As a result, the BSP, which was organizing a series of ‘Brahmin Sammelan’ during elections to woo Brahmins, changed its stance.

Ritesh Pandey, an MP belonging to the Brahmin community, was replaced by Girish Chandra Jatav as the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha. Nakul Dubey, a close aide of Satish Chandra Mishra, who holds the rank of number two in the party, was expelled from the BSP on charges of anti-party activities. If BSP sources are to be believed, soon some influential leaders of the party will be cut to size, Dalit faces will be able to get crucial role in the organization.