Lok Sabha polls 2014: In polarised Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati chooses to keep low profile

LUCKNOW: BSP supremo Mayawati addressed two rallies in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, her first public appearance in the run up to Polls 2014 in her home state that is going to cast its first ballot only a few days from now.

Known for her high decibel campaigns, Mayawati has been keeping a low profile on the goings-on in UP intriguing both her political opponents and independent observers although she attended rallies in Bihar, Punjab, Chandigarh, West Bengal, J&K and Madhya Pradesh in the past weeks.

On Thursday, she spoke in Bijnore and Aligarh, but stayed away from jumping into the political melee where the stakes have gone up after BJP’s prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi announced his candidature from Varanasi.

Her only significant comments came on arch-rival SP whom she said was rapidly losing its Muslim vote bank after the Muzaffarnagar riots. In fact, a few observers believe Mayawati’s silence may have to do with the polarization effected by the riots that took place between Muslims and Jats. Professor Sudhir Panwar of Lucknow University says that Mayawati deliberately chose to stay away for a specific reason.

“The riots were unique in the sense that they spread to far off villages and were not confined to cities, so the social fabric was broken. The Dalits also became part of this divide.

In fact in some places the Dalits, suffered at the hands of Muslims, and unlike Jats who are well off, the Dalits could not retaliate. So with Dalits veering towards the larger Hindu block, Mayawati probably fears bad results this time,” reasons Panwar. Mayawati does not want to be taking sides of either Muslims so as to annoy her core Dalits votebase.