Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 26: In a disappointing scenario for the opposition, several of its members are making a beeline to the BJP or other parties for ticket to contest the coming Lok Sabha elections with the Bahujan Samaj Party of the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati may turn out to be the biggest loser.
With its diminishing number in the outgoing Lok Sabha, the coming elections could be a battle for survival for the BSP while the Congress too has continued to suffer setbacks with the BJP making deep inroads into its ranks.
The BSP had got its 10 candidates elected in 2019, but run-up to the 2024 General Election, however, appears to be more like a countdown of their diminishing numbers as many of these MPs are looking for and securing different political options. The party MP Ritesh Pandey’s defection to the BJP on Sunday may not be the last nail on its coffin as several other BSP MPs are learnt to be looking elsewhere for ticket to contest the coming elections apprehending that they would have little chance of retaining the seat if re-contest on the BSP symbol.
Ghazipur MP Afzal Ansari has already secured a ticket from the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) ticket while several others are also believed to be looking elsewhere for political refuge. On Sunday itself, Shyam Singh Yadav, BSP MP from Jaunpur participated in the Congress-led Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra, where SP chief Akhilesh Yadav was also present. While Mr Shyam Singh Yadav said on record that he considered the Yatra an apolitical venture, there is talk that he met Mr Akhilesh Yadav before the Yatra, and that he may secure a ticket for himself from the SP.
The Yatra led by the former Congress president Rahul Gandhi also made an interesting detour in its UP leg — while originally expected to go straight from Moradabad to Sambhal, at the request of BSP MP Danish Ali, the Yatra took a detour via the latter’s Lok Sabha constituency of Amroha, a signal that Mr Ali too might be on his way to the Congress. Several other MPs are also looking at options, while some more are looking at the BJP and are waiting for political equations to settle.
When he quit, Mr Pandey said he had been tired of waiting to be engaged with the BSP leadership, and of not being involved in the party’s activities. Ms Mayawati has blamed the party’s elected members and asked them to introspect on whether they are serving the larger “Bahujan movement” or just going “hither and tither spreading the word that party is weak.”
Ever since the advent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the pole position in the BJP and the government, his party has been successful in weaning away non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBC) and non-Jatav Schedule Castes (SC) from its two principal rivals in UP, the SP and BSP. While the SP is aided by the fact that it has the additional support of minorities, and Yadav-dominated seats where both these communities can be dominant, the BSP has been left out in the cold.
“The BSP’s 12-13% Jatav and Dalit vote bank is still with the party, but its winnability was always secured when it reached out across caste lines to other castes. “Mayawati has the potential to reach out across caste lines, as she demonstrated in 2007, but somehow, she is not acting on it currently,” the experts said. “She has maintained equidistance from the BJP and the Opposition, but that has left her in the cold, unlike Naveen Patnaik, who also follows the same strategy, but with greater effect.”
BSP MPs have conveyed that the fire and brimstone of Ms Mayawati’s leadership has dimmed somewhat. One of the party MPs said even on issues like the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the abrogation of Article 370, the party MPs were questioned by Ms Mayawati for attacking the government in Parliament. With only one MLA in the Assembly and a deserting flock, the 2024 Lok Sabha election could be a testing time for the erstwhile big third force in U.P.
Meanwhile, in a huge blow to the Congress, Geeta Kora, its lone MP from Jharkhand and the wife of former chief minister Madhu Kora, quit the party on Monday and joined the BJP leaving the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha – Congress alliance with only one MP – Vijay Hansdak – from the state. The BJP had won 12 of the 14 seats in the state. Madhu Kora, who had been accused of irregularities to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore in the coal block allocation case of 2017 and convicted in a disproportionate assets case, has also joined the BJP.
Madhu Kora became CM of Jharkhand in 2006 while he was an Independent MLA after he emerged as the consensus candidate of the UPA following the fall of the Arjun Munda-led NDA government. The Congress had extended outside support to his government.
However, in 2008, the JMM, which was one of the constituents of the UPA, withdrew its support, leading to the fall of the Madhu Kora government. It was widely believed that the Congress orchestrated the “coup.” Madhu Kora was later made the UPA in-charge for Jharkhand, while the JMM’s Shibu Soren became CM.
Congress leaders admitted shock at Geeta’s switch. “We had no clue about this. Most of the rumours surrounding her unhappiness with the party were false alarms. She even attended a party function on Sunday,” a senior party leader said.
Even in Gujarat, the Congress ranks are disappointed over arrangements with the Aam Aadmi Party conceding the Delhi-based party two seats in the state, Broach and Bhavnagar as part of a pan-India accord before the general election. The daughter of the erstwhile Congress strongman Ahmed Patel, Mumtaz Patel, admitted that she was highly disappointed over Broach seat going to the AAP but dismissed talk of “betrayal.”
Ms Patel said she understood the Congress faced certain compulsions in negotiating the seat-sharing deal with the AAP with the Congress contesting the remaining 24 seats in Mr Modi’s home state.
