View: The Mayawati factor and the ties in the heartland

By Sudha Pai
Congress’ narrow wins in the Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan Assembly elections have once again brought to the fore the importance of building alliances between opposition parties prior to the 2019 elections.

Apart from Chhattisgarh, no decisive victory has emerged elsewhere. In Madhya Pradesh, Congress doubled its seats, but its vote share of 41% remained a shade lower than BJP; in Rajasthan, the difference was little more than 1%.


The need for building alliances is particularly important in the Hindi heartland as it has large number of parliamentary seats and is the battleground for national contenders. Also, BJP has a strong base and electoral machinery.

Here, the role of Mayawati and the Dalit constituency assume importance, especially in Uttar Pradesh. The question of whether to form alliances with the Congress is an old and uneasy dilemma for the BSP. On the one hand, the breakdown of single-party dominance created room for BSP and SP, parties with a narrower, sectarian base. But, on the other hand, as small parties they required alliances to capture power, which they found difficult as they are competing with Congress for the support of the same social base – Dalit, OBC and Muslim.

Hence, apart from the coalition with SP in 1993 and a pre-electoral alliance with the Congress in 1996, BSP preferred coalitions with BJP in the 1990s. In undivided Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, BSP has not been able to establish a strong base as Mayawati has not carried out sustained grassroots mobilisation or built an organisation.

BSP gained some seats in the 1990s when Dalit assertion was strong in the Hindi heartland. But in both, its vote-share declined in the 2000s; sandwiched between Congress and BJP, it remains a ‘third force’ — a spoiler grabbing seats wherever they are weak.

In the 2000s, with the revival of BJP, particularly after the rise of Narendra Modi, the imperative for BSP to form alliances is greater. Both in the 2014 and 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections, the spectacular performance of BJP cut into the seat and vote share of Congress, SP and BSP.

BJP, an avowedly Hindu upper caste party, was able to obtain the support of sections of OBCs and Dalits and emerge dominant in the Hindi heartland. Modi deftly combined promises of rapid development with communal mobilization, creation of a Maha Hindu identity based on non-Brahminical Hindutva, and making the Muslim the “other” for all Hindus, including the lower castes

This happened at a critical juncture when the BSP is facing a crisis of identity and existence and Dalit politics has entered a phase marked by fragmentation and uncertainly.

The shift towards BJP by non-Jatav Dalits is because in the 2000s Uttar Pradesh has witnessed a fundamental shift among disadvantaged groups from the desire for social justice to economic aspirations. While Mayawati remains the tallest Dalit leader, older forms of mobilization used by her no longer seem to appeal.

Against this backdrop, Congress attempted prior to the recent assembly elections to form an alliance with BSP in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Earlier victories in eastern Uttar Pradesh had demonstrated that by joining hands, defeat of the BJP was possible. They indicated that Behenji was able to use her cadres to convince Dalit voters to shift to SP. The Congress-BSP-SP alliance/understanding was to be a precursor to a grand anti-BJP front prior to 2019.

However, it could not materialise as Mayawati demanded a large share of seats which the Congress leadership was unwilling to concede, arguing that BSP could lose in many benefitting BJP. Two factors underlay her demands — ambition of emerging as a key national player and apprehension that a BSP-Congress alliance could lead to a transfer of Dalit votes to the latter. The lack of a strong electoral base in the northern states also deprived BSP of bargaining strength vis-à-vis the bigger party.

Results point to miscalculation by Mayawati of the strength of her Dalit base, and need for an alliance in 2019. If Congress and BSP had formed an alliance in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, BSP’s additional Dalit support together with the upper caste votes received by Congress would have taken them comfortably beyond BJP.

Elections results underline the imperatives of a grand alliance in the Hindi heartland. An alliance in the Hindi heartland, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, between SP, BSP, Congress and other smaller parties would enable them together to obtain not only the support of the Dalits and Muslims. But also some OBC and upper caste votes as the Madhya Pradesh elections suggest, which would limit the seats obtained by BJP.

Such an alliance is possible as despite not aligning in assembly elections, the Congress leadership has kept the door open; the understanding between Sonia Gandhi and Mayawati also points to it.

The take-away for opposition parties from the recent victories is that formation of small alliances by parties at the level of individual states/regions might be more possible, and a more effective method to keep BJP in check.

(The author is former professor, Centre for Political Studies, JNU and has also written Developmental
State and the Dalit Question in Madhya Pradesh: Congress Response)