“ABHI nahin to kabhi nahin (If not now, then never),” is how Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders describe Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s chances of becoming Prime Minister after the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. Even as denials from various Third Front parties fly back and forth about Maya being named as its prime ministerial candidate, BSP leaders have been relentlessly trying to expand the party’s base across India, with BSP leaders expected to contest almost all the 543 Lok Sabha seats in India.

Though Mayawati herself has declared that there is no “scope” to discuss the prime ministerial candidate for the Third Front until after the results for the 15th Lok Sabha results are declared, her strategic efforts to permeate regional boundaries at this juncture do add fuel to the guessing game about her ambitions. A look at the inroads made by the BSP across the country:

The south

“It was not her sudden decision to send (the BSP’s) national secretary Satish Chandra Mishra to attend the Third Front rally in Karnataka. She weighed her options well and then she found herself in a strong bargaining position to be projected as the prime-ministerial candidate of the proposed Third Front,” a source in the BSP disclosed.

Incidentally, the rally was organised just three days before the celebration of her party’s founder Kanshi Ram’s birth anniversary on March 15. “She killed two birds with one stone. First, she used this opportunity to communicate her demand for her projection as the PM candidate to the Third Front leaders before inviting them to attend her party’s function. Then she ensured considerable rise in her popularity graph among the voters of southern states as her party’s organisational works in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have already crossed the third stage,” another source said.

... contd.