BSP chief Mayawati celebrated her 67th birthday with pomp on Sunday, but on this occasion one of her announcements created a stir in the politics of the country including UP. He said that the BSP will not forge an alliance with any party in several state assembly elections to be held this year and in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It is clear that Mayawati is preparing to contest all the 80 seats in UP alone. His announcement may be a matter of concern for Akhilesh Yadav, who has been continuously talking about bringing people of Ambedkar and Lohia’s ideology together.
Akhilesh Yadav, who has brought along several OBC and Dalit leaders including Swami Prasad Maurya, Dara Singh Chauhan before the assembly elections, has been repeatedly reiterating that he wants to bring together Ambedkarite and Lohiaist leaders. His statement was considered an attempt to get the BSP’s support, but now the situation seems to be changing with Mayawati’s announcement. Of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, 17 are reserved for the Scheduled Castes. Of these, 15 were won by the BJP and its allies in 2019. BSP got only 2 seats, while SP’s account remained zero. Which got a total of 5 seats and BSP got 10 in its account.
In such a situation, if the BSP contests the general elections in 2024, even if it cannot win these reserved seats, it will be very difficult for the SP to win here. Apart from this, SP will also find it difficult in those seats where the number of Muslim voters is more. These include seats like Meerut, Amroha, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, Mau, Saharanpur, Azamgarh. Along with Muslim voters, there is a good number of Dalit voters in these seats. A section of them has always been voting for the BSP. In such a situation, if the BSP gets these votes, then the Muslim and Dalit votes that the SP will get will be dented. This could be a source of trouble for him.
Akhilesh is making a plan for damage control, but how much will be successful
Akhilesh Yadav may not have formed an alliance with Chandrashekhar in the 2022 assembly elections, but has been together since the recent bypolls. In such a situation, it is believed that Akhilesh Yadav is doing damage control by taking Chandrashekhar along with him for not being able to coordinate with BSP. However, this strategy does not seem to be successful in entire UP. The reason for this is that outside Meerut and Saharanpur Mandal, Chandrashekhar does not have any special mass base. Even today, a large part of the Dalit class has Mayawati’s identity and credibility. In such a situation, it will be interesting to see how successful Mayawati is by fighting alone and what Akhilesh Yadav is able to achieve by taking Chandrashekhar along. Or like in 2019 BJP will win again.