UP bypolls 2018: Absent Mayawati makes her presence felt

LUCKNOW: After she drew a blank in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and a humiliating 19 seats in last year’s UP assembly contest, many pundits seemed inclined to write Mayawati off. Apart from political diminution, she faced corruption charges, including that she would auction BSP support to the highest bidder.

On Wednesday, however, she proved wrong all those ready to pen her political obituary by helping SP pull off stunning victories in Gorakhpur and Phulpur.

The results should quell doubts about her ability to take her Dalit constituency where she would like them to go. In this instance, she got them to vote for SP despite the hostile equations they have shared with Yadavs, the mainstay of the SP base for decades. Though the animosity between the two sections pre-dates the rise of BSP, it acquired the dimensions of a blood feud after the attack on her at a state guest house by SP workers in 1995.


But it took just one call from Mayawati to her supporters to bring down the wall of distrust, clearing the way for a social combination which, along with Muslims, will worry BJP in the run-up to the 2019 polls. BSP was not in direct contest and Mayawati neither campaigned nor made media appearances. But she had her ears to the ground every hour after she deployed first-time BSP MLA from Chillupar, Vinay Shankar Tewari, in Gorakhpur and the party’s Rajya Sabha member Ashok Siddharth.

Mayawati’s support proved a morale-booster for the SP cadre on the ground.