Mayawati is launching the Samajwadi Party's campain for Uttar Pradesh elections early. (File)
Highlights
- Mayawati is launching the BSP's campaign for 2017 UP polls early
- She has also planned far more extensive campaign
- Mayawati has support of Dalits, hopes to win over Muslim votes from SP
When Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati addresses what her supporters say will be a massive rally in western Uttar Pradesh's Agra on Sunday, it will be a departure from the past in many ways for the former chief minister and Dalit leader.
In the next one month, Mayawati will address a rally every week. Her next stop is arch rival and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's constituency Azamgarh in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Not only is the BSP chief starting her campaign for the 2017 elections early, she is also launching an extensive one - a departure from her strategies in the past.
Mayawati has more reasons than one to adopt this change in strategy. In the last few months, most of the news about her was to do with allegations that she was taking money for allotting seats for the forthcoming assembly elections. When her confidante and the party's most prominent OBC face Swami Prasad Maurya left the party, it was, at least officially, over these allegations. Then other leaders, prominent ones, left, making the same allegations.
It seemed Mayawati was down and out. Then, the BJP handed her a proverbial fig leaf. Now expelled BJP vice president Daya Shankar Singh's statements equating her to a sex worker, led to a massive BSP agitation against the BJP and handed her a lifeline at a time when things were going downhill for her.
In Agra, the theme of her rally is going to be how the BJP is 'anti-Dalit'.
Agra is an interesting choice to flag off her campaign for other reasons too. The western UP district has a significant population of both Dalits, her core support group, and Muslims, a combination she is hoping will lead the BSP back to power in the 2017 assembly elections.
In the coming polls, Mayawati is expected to hand out one in four tickets to Muslims, the strategy for her party is what sources say an unbreakable Dalit-Muslim combination. The party feels the Muslim vote will shift away from the Samajwadi Party this time because of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. Most castes that make up the 21 per cent Dalit population in the state, support Mayawati, according to the party's calculation.
In the last few months, Maywati has also spoken out strongly the against atrocities on Dalits in the name of cows and is expected to attack the BJP over the issue on Sunday.
To questions if the strategy will work for the former UP CM, party sources say that the 5 lakh people expected at the Agra rally will be the answer.