Mayawati has taken a conscious decision to remain free from the illusion of alliances.

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has not only surprised the opposition India alliance by announcing that she will contest alone in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections but has also created new political equations. This announcement will not make much difference to the other parties of the Indian alliance, but the electoral gains and losses of Congress, Samajwadi Party and BJP will definitely be affected by it. This is the reason why strategists of all three parties have started making political assessments from their own perspective. If Mayawati had joined the opposition alliance, both Congress and Samajwadi Party could have benefited in Uttar Pradesh, but now BJP may get this benefit. In recent times, the kind of liberal attitude the BSP supremo was showing towards the customs and policies of the BJP, it was being speculated that she would not become a light for the India alliance. One of the main reasons for this latest announcement being visible already is that Mayawati has declared her nephew Akash Anand as her successor. Today, when all the opposition parties have united against BJP and Narendra Modi, the absence of a big party like BSP in it also becomes important. Certainly, the elephant of BSP has moved ahead, crushing the dreams of the India alliance.

Mayawati, who has experience of ruling Uttar Pradesh for a long time, has shown political wisdom and announced to contest independent elections. How much seats the BSP will gain in the Lok Sabha if Mayawati contests the elections alone remains to be seen in the future. But from the point of view of her vote bank, Mayawati has fired a surefire shot to increase her slipping support base by announcing that she will contest the elections alone. He has also given a message to his voters that no one else can take share in their vote bank. Whereas Samajwadi Party has been using all kinds of tricks to avail such benefits. BSP in Uttar Pradesh. Contested Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in 1993 and 2019 in alliance with Samajwadi Party. According to political analysts, there was vote transfer between SP and BSP in the 1993 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Due to which a coalition government was formed in the state. Although, in the year 2014, SP-BSP had contested the elections separately, but in the year 2019, both fought together. Both parties benefited from this. Even BSP benefited more because in 2014, BSP did not get a single seat after being defeated by the political mathematics of BJP. Whereas with the alliance BSP was successful in getting ten Lok Sabha seats in 2019. However, SP did not get much benefit, it got only five Lok Sabha seats in its account.

The situation of sourness and distrust between Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav seemed to be increasing for some time, which is why Mayawati even called the SP chief a color-changing chameleon. Mayawati said that the benefits of the votes of the parties with whom BSP had formed an alliance during the last elections were not to her but to the alliance party. However, Mayawati’s decision of Ekla Chalo has definitely dealt a big blow to the India alliance, especially the country’s oldest Congress party was hopeful that if Mayawati becomes a part of the opposition alliance, the scattering of votes would be stopped. Especially to take the lead in Uttar Pradesh, which is showing the way to the seat of Delhi, where the India Alliance can get the benefit of BSP’s strong hold in the deprived society. But Mayawati has taken this far-reaching decision only to secure, protect and increase her vote bank, which will benefit BSP. This political decision of Mayawati is also the right step to understand and behave honestly towards the mandate and public expectations and success goes with such right steps.

Politically, this move of Mayawati can definitely be very beneficial for herself rather than others. Because BSP’s vote bank belongs to it, no one can break into it. That is why BSP seems to be getting many benefits from contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone. The first advantage is that the party is assuming from its past experiences that its vote percentage will not reduce. The second and important advantage of BSP is that no other party can take advantage or share of their votes. In these circumstances, if the vote percentage does not reduce, then their seats are definitely not going to reduce. Even in the strong wave of BJP, their seats might be less, but there could be no dent in the vote percentage. Therefore, entering the political fray alone with intact vote percentage will be a profitable deal for the party. On the basis of all these calculations, the path of elections alone can become a highway to boost the morale of his party workers and strengthen BSP for the future. Apart from this, it is also being said that for the first time in this election, Mayawati has played a big political game of openly making a strategy and implementing it without any pressure and contesting the elections alone for her successor Akash Anand. It is absolutely true that by being in alliance, Akash Anand does not get that much freedom to pursue his strategies.

While Mayawati’s latest announcements have caused a major stir in the political arena, the opposition parties have also been unnerved by these announcements. This is why opposition parties are alleging that Mayawati is scared of the action of the central agencies of the BJP government. They have taken this decision under the pressure of fear of possible action by ED and other financial agencies. There may be truth in these allegations, but all the leaders and parties associated with politics are not innocent, the shadow of such ED can loom over them, then why don’t they also take similar decisions that benefit NDA? Even if the opposition parties see BSP’s strategy of indirectly benefiting NDA from this point of view, or this is the reason why the BSP supremo has avoided those harsh slogans which she has often raised regarding the upper castes. No matter how many allegations the opposition keeps making, it has completely failed to keep Mayawati a part of the India alliance.

There was a time when the political magic of Mayawati and BSP was at its peak. But this arrogance and anti-people politics soon showed Mayawati her ground. This political party, based on the ideology of Dalit-Muslim alliance, could not maintain the trust of Muslims in the long run. At one time, the magic of the party was so much that in the 1987 Haridwar Lok Sabha by-election, the deposit of even veteran Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan was confiscated. It was the strength of the BSP-SP alliance that the BJP had to face defeat in the Ram wave that followed the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya in 1992. But the support base of Mayawati, who was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh four times, is no longer enough for the party to play the role of king maker. Narendra Modi’s charismatic and magical personality has dented its traditional support base. However, BJP will like BSP contesting the elections alone as it will lead to loss of support base of the opposition alliance. Due to which the path to victory of BJP may become easier.

-Lalit Garg

(The author is a senior journalist and columnist)