Fourth, it was not just about caste: class and gender played a crucial role in the BSP’s success. The class slope of the BSP’s vote is not different from the textbook illustration of the social basis of the communist parties: the vote share shoots up sharply from 15 to 41 as you go from the rich to the poor. And this is not merely because dalits are also poor. Within each caste group, the BSP got substantially more votes among the poor than it did among the rich. Among women the BSP got two percentage points votes more than it did among men. You might think this is a tiny difference, but the BSP may have fallen short of a majority in the absence of this additional support among women.

In other words, we are not looking at a one-caste party like the Apna Dal or a two-caste alliance like the SP. Nor is it a rainbow coalition of the old-Congress variety. The BSP’s social coalition is like that of Lalu Prasad Yadav at his height: it is a coalition of the downtrodden. Perhaps no electoral verdict combined all the axes of social disadvantage in our society — caste, class, gender, region and urban-rural — as this historic victory of the BSP. We need to notice that the BSP did better in rural areas and in the least developed regions like Bundelkhand and Eastern UP.

It is best to see the BSP’s support as comprising three layers: core, auxiliary and floating voters. The core support is caste-based from among all dalits who comprise 22 per cent of UP’s population. Class or gender make no difference here, nor is there much difference between jatavs and non-jatavs. This base vote is quite inelastic and leaves Mayawati free to court any other community in any way she pleases.

... contd.