“Haathi Nahi Ganesh Hai… Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh Hai…”
It turned BSP from an anti-Brahmin and Dalit-centric party into an umbrella coalition of all caste groups. Mayawati rode to power on the back of a Brahmin-Dalit alliance. In a big outreach to the Brahmin community, Mayawati has given a prime role related to elections to her confidante and the party’s Brahmin face, Satish Chandra Mishra.
Bahujan Samaj Party’s slogan in 2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections redefined state’s social engineering and Mayawati’s political fortunes. In the Lok Sabha election of 2024, Mayawati’s party failed to win a single seat in UP and its vote share dropped to under 10%.
“Satish Chandra Mishra, who has been the national general secretary of the Bahujan Samaj Party for a considerable length of time, has now been entrusted by the party with important responsibilities related to legal and media matters, as well as Election Commission affairs, which will play a crucial role in many ways during the upcoming Assembly elections,” the BSP chief posted on X.
Then there is the question of slipping of Dalit votes from the BSP to the BJP side. But can Mayawati’s harping back to the 2007 success story dent the Brahmin-BJP love affair in UP? The bloc has been steadfastly behind the saffron party, with 89% of Brahmins voting for the BJP in the 2022 elections, according to CSDS-Lokniti data. Along with this, 87% of Thakurs/Rajputs, 83% of Vaishyas and 78% of other upper castes voted for the BJP in the last Assembly election. Dalits, who are over 20% of the state’s electorate, have turned to the BJP in the last few polls as Mayawati’s BSP ceased to be a movement and turned into a single-woman party.
