Beating up on BSP

The BSP was till a few days back a close friend of the CPM and a key player in its Third Front dream. But the situation has changed after the elections. Analysing the Lok Sabha election results in Uttar Pradesh, the CPM’s central committee member and its UP state secretary S.P. Kashyap says the two-year rule of the BSP has created discontent among the voters and there was a lot of resentment against several of the anti-people policies being pursued by the Mayawati government. “The people also abhorred the wastage of public money on a number of statues and memorials being built up in the state, while the government has little care for the issues facing the people. Nor did the people like the way Mayawati projected herself as a candidate for the prime minister’s position,” he says. “Further, she put up a number of criminals and mafia-men as candidates for the Lok Sabha, and this the people thoroughly detested. Her formula of “social engineering” and “Sarvajan Samaj” in place of “Bahujan Samaj” was able to attract the upper castes in 2007, but failed to do so this time,” he analyses. On the performance of the Congress, he says the substantial increase in its vote share does indicate that it has not only increased its seat tally but also expanded its mass base. “A characteristic of this expanded mass base is that it is not confined to a particular caste, religious group or section; people of all sections have given it more support in comparison to 2004. For example, it received support from a big chunk of the minority voters who moved away from the SP.. Similarly, a good part of the upper caste voters mobilised behind the Congress party. From among the backward castes, it received sizeable support from the Kurmi and Koiri voters in the central parts of the state. Moreover, the Congress was able to penetrate among the Dalit voters who have so far been solidly behind the BSP.” “The question to deeply ponder over is: How was the party able to attract various sections of society? In a cursory manner, one may say that some of the UPA government’s steps like the rural employment guarantee scheme and loan waiver benefited the Congress party to an extent. Then, there was also the belief that only the Congress-led UPA could provide a stable government at the centre. Its candidate selection was also much better than in the past, and it also benefited the trend of upper castes and minorities deserting the two main parties in the state, the SP and the BSP,” he concludes.

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