The election of a dalit woman as chief minister of the largest state of India on her own party strength is an extremely positive development in Indian politics and a proof of the continuing vitality of our democracy. However, to conflate what has happened and what we wish to see happening would be an easy but disastrous slip at this juncture. A

number of leading analysts have asserted that the installation of a BSP

government in UP reflects a major turnaround in the political consciousness of the oppressed or the rise of “a poor man’s rainbow” over UP (‘Poor Man’s Rainbow’ by Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar, IE, May 17).

The latter conclusion is highly flawed. First, it glosses over the fact that the majority gained by Mayawati in Lucknow is only in terms of assembly seats. A party which has 70 per cent of the vote going against it cannot be described as the party of all the poor or even all dalits and minorities. That this may happen in the near future with good governance from the new dispensation is a shared and sincere hope. But to suggest that the 25 per cent of voters who remained loyal to the Samajwadi Party do not include the poor is highly erroneous.

More pertinently, the assertion that the poor were the principal force behind the triumphant march of ‘the elephant’ to Lucknow ignores the most significant feature of the UP election, namely, the shift of a significant chunk of upper caste (which also happens to be mainly upper and middle class) vote to the BSP seeking reprieve from the goonda raj and the perceived minorityism of the previous regime. Indeed, it is this 3-4 per cent vote swing from the BJP to the BSP which independently accounts for the turnaround in the seat share and the current mood in Uttar Pradesh also.

... contd.