After weeks of will-she- won’t-she join the Third Front dance speculation, Mayawati has expectedly scotched the idea of a formal alliance until after the election. The BSP has expressed solidarity with the non-BJP, non-Congress platform, but passed up a pre-poll arrangement, characteristically preferring to go it alone. Given the unique transferability of its vote base, the BSP does not expect any direct benefits from pre-poll alliances. Instead, the big blue elephant has been doggedly inching its way across the country — at the moment, it is looking to expand its voteshare rather than bag seats. It wants to maximise its presence, and then use its political girth to bargain with the system, rather than partner with it. It’s not a party that can easily share space, and it is a notoriously dodgy ally.

The BSP had always cultivated the legend of its own exceptionalism. (Party founder Kanshi Ram, when asked if he was leftist, rightist or centrist, answered, “I am an opportunist”, pointing to the way Dalits had been systematically denied opportunity and were now determined to snatch it for themselves.) And led by Dalit warrior princess Mayawati, the party has managed to refashion itself electorally, reaching out to forward castes. Despite her outrageous personality cult and corruption charges, she has been impressively tough on crime and an exacting administrator. Her phenomenal 2007 victory in Uttar Pradesh (managing a single-party majority after almost 20 years) was a psychological boost, making everyone acknowledge that she was a political force of nature who could not be contained in UP alone for long. While she has always been candid about her maximalist plans for herself, the idea of Maya for PM became a concrete possibility after the trust vote, when the Left put its imprimatur on the idea, providing intellectual backing to her ambition.

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