Within hours of senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit being named as the chief ministerial candidate for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party turned around its poll strategy and will
Within hours of senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit being named as the chief ministerial candidate for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party turned around its poll strategy and will now make a renewed attempt to woo back brahmins.
The party on Friday asked its MP Satish Chandra to revive the Bhaichara committees and focus on brahmins in the state.
The Bhaichara committees that seek to forge a bond between Dalits and upper castes, incidentally, had been lying almost defunct after the BSP faced a rout in the Lok Sabha elections.
The BSP knows that a resurgent Congress under the leadership of Ms Dikshit and Raj Babbar could weaken it beyond repair. The rejig in the Congress this week has already sent a clear message that the party is serious about making a comeback and this is bound to affect the floating voter population, especially among upper castes.
The projection of Ms Sheila Dikshit as the Congress chief ministerial candidate, on Thursday, had given another jolt to the BSP which knows that it with Dalit votes alone, cannot form a government ion its own strength and needs the support of other castes.
Brahmins comprise almost 11 per cent of the state’s population and prior to the Ayodhya movement, the community had been supporting the Congress but later it went with the BJP.
In 2007, Ms Mayawati had forged a Dalit-Brahmin combination and projected Mr Satish Chandra Misra as its brahmin face. The brahmins supported the BSP which gave the party a clear majority in 2007 but the party could not consolidate its position in the community and brahmins moved away from the BSP in 2012.
The BSP emphasis on brahmins, expectedly, had an adverse impact on Dalits who also deserted the party because of the growing brahmin dominance in the party.
Dalits felt that their “votes and notes” were being used to advantage by the brahmins and the popular slogan was ‘’Vote hamara, note hamara aur raj tumhara , nahin chalega’. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BSP could not win even a single seat. Party insiders are now wary of the move to woo Brahmins again and feel that this will further damage the beleaguered party which is presently reeling under the impact of recent desertions by senior leaders. A number of leaders who left the party have accused Ms Mayawati of betraying the ideology of Dr Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram and said that the BSP no longer catered to the interests of Dalits. But, in obvious desperation, Ms Mayawati has asked her party leaders to focus firmly on Brahmins and, if possible, even bring back the disgruntled elements from this community. Mr S C Misra, along with other Brahmin leaders like Ramvir Upadhyaya, his wife Seema Upadhyaya and O P Tripathi, will now be touring the various districts to interact with Brahmins and convince them to support the BSP. A senior Dalit leader will help the Brahmin leaders in this campaign.
