Absences are sometimes as important as what is visible. For, they tell their own stories. The Uttar Pradesh election has for the first time in decades thrown up a notable absence.
Mayawati, the first woman Dalit Chief Minister elected with a clear majority via a party of Dalits in 2007, seems a shadow of her former self in these elections.
No survey and no commentator is seeing her as a contender for power this time in UP. She seems to have been diminished to the status of an also-ran and is being talked about in the same vein as Priyanka Gandhi, whose party declined in the state four decades back, but for a short-lived burst of moderate success in UP in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
In not being a contender for power, Mayawati seems clearly past her prime. She has also not been seen as making much effort this time — be it because of pending cases against her or a realization that she no longer commands the following she once did.
The only door to renewed relevance for Mayawati now will perhaps open in the event of a hung verdict, when she can pledge support to a party that is close to majority. If such a scenario arises, Mayawati may get a fresh lease of political life and, in case she supports the BJP, even a position in Delhi.
By 2007, Mayawati had successfully forged a large social coalition. She had added a sizeable chunk of extremely backward castes and a smattering of Brahmins to her vote base and breached the majority mark on her own.
This was followed by national ambitions. She addressed mammoth rallies in Uttar Pradesh and outside early in 2008, inviting journalists from Delhi to attend them. This journalist also attended some such rallies in UP’s Bundelkhand, at Bhim Nagri in Agra and in Haryana. Few leaders in India can gather the sea of humanity that Mayawati was capable of attracting. At the Agra rally, her large cutout at the venue had an image of Parliament behind it, making clear her national ambitions. In Bundelkhand, the sight of her helicopter would make the massive crowd go up and down in waves.
Success made Mayawati replace Bahujan — Dalits, OBCs and Muslims — with Sarv Jan, meaning all communities. She also put in place bhaichara committees to reach out to multiple sections of society. In what marked a break with her past anti-Gandhi rhetoric, she even put out an ad in newspapers on Gandhi Jayanti saying that the BSP’s Sarv Jan discourse was a continuation of Mahatma Gandhi’s vision. She seemed to be becoming ‘mainstream’, and moving beyond Kanshi Ram and Dr. BR Ambedkar, whom she had once considered her heroes.
Mayawati’s Chief Ministership was admired on the law-and-order front. She was the only Chief Minister to have taken on both Raghuraj Pratap Singh (Raja Bhaiya) and Mahendra Singh Tikait, in front of whom even Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister had gone soft. She also built the expressway from Noida to Agra, which at that time was arguably the best expressway in India.
Yet, the decline came soon. The parks she built to fete Dalit and Bahujan icons from across the country were interpreted as waste of public money. She tried to defend herself, saying that if Raj Ghat, Shanti Van or Shakti Sthal could exist on the other side of the Yamuna, why could Dalit-Bahujan icons not be feted on this side of the river. However, statues of elephants — signifying her party symbol — and Mayawati herself in the parks gave her bad publicity.
ALSO READ | Assembly Elections 2022 LIVE Updates: Priyanka Gandhi defends Punjab CM’s ‘UP, Bihar ke bhaiya’ remark; BJP releases Manipur poll manifesto
And even the sharp edge of Ambedkarite anti-Brahmin rhetoric that sustained her in the 1990s was lost by now. A younger Mayawati had in the 90s risen on the back of slogans like Brahmin Saaf, Thakur Half, Baniya Maaf (Finish off Brahmins, cut Thakurs to half their strength and forgive the Baniya). In 2007, she had modified her slogan to Brahmin Shankh Bajaayega, To Haathi Aage Jaayega (when the Brahmin blows the conch, the elephant will move forward).
The attempt at moving beyond her core base did not pay off. Fresh blood in Samajwadi Party — once seen as replete with people with shady criminal pasts — in the form of Akhilesh Yadav defeated Mayawati in 2012. By 2014, the social equations had changed. The EBC vote that Mayawati had gained in 2007 and lost to a considerable extent in 2012 was now lost for a much longer time, as the BJP projected Narendra Modi, a leader belonging to a small OBC caste, the Modh-Ghanchis of Gujarat, and Amit Shah made an organized outreach to smaller OBC castes.
Even Dalits had got splintered by now, as caste divisions within the category came to haunt Mayawati. Her caste, the Jatavs, stood by her, but other Dalit castes like Valmikis and Khatiks were lost to her.
In 2017, Mayawati gave 100 tickets to Muslims in a bid to win over the community. But she could not. Rather, Muslims got splintered, voting on some seats for Muslim candidates she had fielded, but largely remaining with SP, their preferred party since the days of LK Advani’s Ram temple Rath Yatra. Later, Mayawati also expressed her anguish that the community did not side with her despite her having given them the largest representation among all parties.
For many Muslims, her past alliances with the BJP had made her untrustworthy. It wasn’t as simple though. Society does not exist within the secular-communal binary alone. When SP members had attacked Mayawati in 1995 at a guest house in Lucknow, and she had to hide in a room to save her life, it was Brahma Dutt Dwivedi from the BJP who came with his men to save her.
In 2017, the BJP romped home, with upper castes, non-Yadav OBCs and sections of Dalits backing it. Mayawati’s BSP had shrunk into an all-Jatav (caste of leather workers) party.
In 2022, too, Mayawati seems to command the loyalty only of Jatavs, 56-percent among the 21-percent Dalits in UP, or about 11-percent of the state’s population. She seems to have lost most plus-factors. To make things worse, Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, a young activist from her own caste, is also making a name for himself, though he hasn’t tasted electoral success and is seen by some as largely a person hyped by the media. However, he does remain a future threat for her.
The change in 2022 is that it has now become commonsense that Mayawati is past her prime. Earlier, many thought she could, and would, bounce back. Today, few see her as a contender for power.
The journey of Mayawati, who studied at Kalindi College in Delhi University, was remarkable. Kanshi Ram noticed her abilities when she was preparing for the civil services exam. He asked her to quit the preparation and join politics, saying IAS officers would one day be at her beck and call.
The remarkable journey did prove Kanshi Ram’s words to be prophetic. However, it seems the political journey was not to last as long as many thought a decade back.
Mayawati, the first woman Dalit Chief Minister elected with a clear majority via a party of Dalits in 2007, seems a shadow of her former self in these elections.
No survey and no commentator is seeing her as a contender for power this time in UP. She seems to have been diminished to the status of an also-ran and is being talked about in the same vein as Priyanka Gandhi, whose party declined in the state four decades back, but for a short-lived burst of moderate success in UP in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
In not being a contender for power, Mayawati seems clearly past her prime. She has also not been seen as making much effort this time — be it because of pending cases against her or a realization that she no longer commands the following she once did.
The only door to renewed relevance for Mayawati now will perhaps open in the event of a hung verdict, when she can pledge support to a party that is close to majority. If such a scenario arises, Mayawati may get a fresh lease of political life and, in case she supports the BJP, even a position in Delhi.
By 2007, Mayawati had successfully forged a large social coalition. She had added a sizeable chunk of extremely backward castes and a smattering of Brahmins to her vote base and breached the majority mark on her own.
This was followed by national ambitions. She addressed mammoth rallies in Uttar Pradesh and outside early in 2008, inviting journalists from Delhi to attend them. This journalist also attended some such rallies in UP’s Bundelkhand, at Bhim Nagri in Agra and in Haryana. Few leaders in India can gather the sea of humanity that Mayawati was capable of attracting. At the Agra rally, her large cutout at the venue had an image of Parliament behind it, making clear her national ambitions. In Bundelkhand, the sight of her helicopter would make the massive crowd go up and down in waves.
Success made Mayawati replace Bahujan — Dalits, OBCs and Muslims — with Sarv Jan, meaning all communities. She also put in place bhaichara committees to reach out to multiple sections of society. In what marked a break with her past anti-Gandhi rhetoric, she even put out an ad in newspapers on Gandhi Jayanti saying that the BSP’s Sarv Jan discourse was a continuation of Mahatma Gandhi’s vision. She seemed to be becoming ‘mainstream’, and moving beyond Kanshi Ram and Dr. BR Ambedkar, whom she had once considered her heroes.
Mayawati’s Chief Ministership was admired on the law-and-order front. She was the only Chief Minister to have taken on both Raghuraj Pratap Singh (Raja Bhaiya) and Mahendra Singh Tikait, in front of whom even Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister had gone soft. She also built the expressway from Noida to Agra, which at that time was arguably the best expressway in India.
Yet, the decline came soon. The parks she built to fete Dalit and Bahujan icons from across the country were interpreted as waste of public money. She tried to defend herself, saying that if Raj Ghat, Shanti Van or Shakti Sthal could exist on the other side of the Yamuna, why could Dalit-Bahujan icons not be feted on this side of the river. However, statues of elephants — signifying her party symbol — and Mayawati herself in the parks gave her bad publicity.
ALSO READ | Assembly Elections 2022 LIVE Updates: Priyanka Gandhi defends Punjab CM’s ‘UP, Bihar ke bhaiya’ remark; BJP releases Manipur poll manifesto
And even the sharp edge of Ambedkarite anti-Brahmin rhetoric that sustained her in the 1990s was lost by now. A younger Mayawati had in the 90s risen on the back of slogans like Brahmin Saaf, Thakur Half, Baniya Maaf (Finish off Brahmins, cut Thakurs to half their strength and forgive the Baniya). In 2007, she had modified her slogan to Brahmin Shankh Bajaayega, To Haathi Aage Jaayega (when the Brahmin blows the conch, the elephant will move forward).
The attempt at moving beyond her core base did not pay off. Fresh blood in Samajwadi Party — once seen as replete with people with shady criminal pasts — in the form of Akhilesh Yadav defeated Mayawati in 2012. By 2014, the social equations had changed. The EBC vote that Mayawati had gained in 2007 and lost to a considerable extent in 2012 was now lost for a much longer time, as the BJP projected Narendra Modi, a leader belonging to a small OBC caste, the Modh-Ghanchis of Gujarat, and Amit Shah made an organized outreach to smaller OBC castes.
Even Dalits had got splintered by now, as caste divisions within the category came to haunt Mayawati. Her caste, the Jatavs, stood by her, but other Dalit castes like Valmikis and Khatiks were lost to her.
In 2017, Mayawati gave 100 tickets to Muslims in a bid to win over the community. But she could not. Rather, Muslims got splintered, voting on some seats for Muslim candidates she had fielded, but largely remaining with SP, their preferred party since the days of LK Advani’s Ram temple Rath Yatra. Later, Mayawati also expressed her anguish that the community did not side with her despite her having given them the largest representation among all parties.
For many Muslims, her past alliances with the BJP had made her untrustworthy. It wasn’t as simple though. Society does not exist within the secular-communal binary alone. When SP members had attacked Mayawati in 1995 at a guest house in Lucknow, and she had to hide in a room to save her life, it was Brahma Dutt Dwivedi from the BJP who came with his men to save her.
In 2017, the BJP romped home, with upper castes, non-Yadav OBCs and sections of Dalits backing it. Mayawati’s BSP had shrunk into an all-Jatav (caste of leather workers) party.
In 2022, too, Mayawati seems to command the loyalty only of Jatavs, 56-percent among the 21-percent Dalits in UP, or about 11-percent of the state’s population. She seems to have lost most plus-factors. To make things worse, Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, a young activist from her own caste, is also making a name for himself, though he hasn’t tasted electoral success and is seen by some as largely a person hyped by the media. However, he does remain a future threat for her.
The change in 2022 is that it has now become commonsense that Mayawati is past her prime. Earlier, many thought she could, and would, bounce back. Today, few see her as a contender for power.
The journey of Mayawati, who studied at Kalindi College in Delhi University, was remarkable. Kanshi Ram noticed her abilities when she was preparing for the civil services exam. He asked her to quit the preparation and join politics, saying IAS officers would one day be at her beck and call.
The remarkable journey did prove Kanshi Ram’s words to be prophetic. However, it seems the political journey was not to last as long as many thought a decade back.
—The author Vikas Pathak is a columnist and media educator. The views expressed here are personal.
Check out our in-depth Market Coverage, Business News & get real-time Stock Market Updates on CNBC-TV18. Also, Watch our channels CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bajar Live on-the-go!
