Downfall of a behemoth: As 2024 approaches, Mayawati risks fading into political oblivion

The coming Lok Sabha polls next year may finally seal the fate of a national leader who just one and a half decades ago seemed poised to radically alter India’s political scenario. Mayawati, popularly known as Behenji, who has been steadily sliding backwards in recent years, appears to be heading towards a precipice that may well see her plunge into political oblivion in 2024. It is a telling example of the twists and turns of Indian politics that has led to the downfall of a behemoth aptly symbolised by the rapidly fading elephant symbol of her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Five years ago, after sensing Behenji’s irreversible decline I had in the third and final edition of my biography Behenji changed the sub-title from “The political biography of Mayawati” to “The Rise and Fall of Mayawati”. This had not only angered her and her supporters but also provoked rebuke from many political pundits who felt I was writing her political obituary too soon. However, the complete wipe out of the BSP in the Uttar Pradesh state assembly polls last year reducing it to just a single seat in the 403 seat Vidhan Sabha vindicated my prediction.

The Dalit leader today is a pale shadow of the dynamic firebrand who promised to leapfrog traditional political and social equations in the country’s most populous state when she swept to power with a single party majority in 2007 sending ripples across the country. But the meteoric rise of Mayawati that even fuelled speculation about her becoming India’s first Dalit prime minister did not last long. The steep descent of the BSP in Uttar Pradesh seen through the party’s dwindling number of seats in the state assembly over the past four elections is remarkable – an amazing 206 in 2007 to 80 in 2012 to 19 in 2017 slumping finally to a pathetic single seat last year.

It is true that after failing to win a single Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 national elections the BSP managed to register a bump upwards getting 10 seats in the 2019 polls through a short-lived alliance with its sworn political enemy Samajwadi Party led by Akhilesh Yadav. However, this rise of numbers in the Lower House from zero was misleading and mainly due to Muslim and Dalit collaboration in some constituencies because of the alliance that benefited Mayawati but cost Akhilesh whose party could only muster five seats even though it was Behenji who mysteriously scrapped the alliance shortly after the polls. In the 2022 assembly polls where the Samajwadi Party got as many as 111 seats compared to just one for the BSP testified to the real respective electoral strength of the two political rivals.

Mayawati has faded away both because of the vastly changed political scenario today from that during her rise as well as her own shortcomings. She no longer has the advantage of exploiting upper caste most notably Brahmin fears of Yadav Raj in politically crucial Uttar Pradesh after the 1990 Mandal Commission backward caste-based reservations. She had managed to become chief minister thrice heading shaky coalition governments propped up by the two national parties BJP and Congress both guided by Brahmin leaders and equally threatened by the might of the Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh. Behenji had then in the 2007 state assembly polls managed to bypass both parties forging a historic alliance between the Brahmins and Dalits – the highest and lowest rungs of caste hierarchy – to get a majority on her own.

Unfortunately for the Dalit leader she palpably failed to make this alliance work after coming to power with both Brahmins and Dalits blaming her government of favouring one over the other. The writing on the wall was evident as early as the 2009 Lok Sabha polls when the Brahmins of Uttar Pradesh voted largely for the Congress dashing Behenji’s prime ministerial dreams and then in the state assembly polls in 2012 when she lost power because the Brahmin-Dalit alliance simply failed to work.

With the advent of Narendra Modi as a larger than life political icon during the 2014 parliamentary polls the Brahmins entirely abandoned Mayawati who found herself increasingly isolated and the fact that she failed to win a single seat was a major blow to her credibility denting her support even within the Dalit community including her core support base of her own Jatav sub-caste. As the challenge of 2024 looms closer Behenji faces serious erosion of support among the Jatavs who comprise the largest chunk of Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh particularly the younger politically conscious sections who see her as yesterday’s leader and more attracted towards the up-and-coming flamboyant moustachioed Bhim Army chief Chandrasekhar Azad who is far more active on the ground. Having entirely lost the Brahmin vote and hardly any support from other lower backward castes who used to also swell her vote bank Mayawati can now depend only on older Jatavs who still cling to the nostalgia of a Dalit leader in the saddle even if it is no longer possible.

As for the large beleaguered Muslim minority in Uttar Pradesh under the rule of saffron robed monk Yogi Adityanath, it has been assiduously wooed by the BSP over the past year but Behenji has a huge credibility problem. There is widespread perception that she has been intimidated by investigation of corruption charges against her by the CBI and other central government agencies that has made her amenable to pressure from the BJP to play the game of splitting Dalit and Muslim votes. For instance, in the recent city Mayoral elections in Uttar Pradesh the BSP put up as many as 11 Muslim candidates for the 17 posts which certainly helped the BJP to win all of them thwarting the main opposition party Samajwadi Party.

Indeed, it seems that in the autumn of her political career Behenji has given up seriously trying to regain her past glory and is content in mere survival. Reported to have quietly struck a deal with the BJP she is unlikely to be a part of the growing efforts to form a larger Opposition alliance even if it means that it could completely marginalise her and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh like it has in the rest of the country. Mayawati’s seeming lethargy and lack of effort to regain lost political ground suggests that she is resigned to her fate. Her occasional tweets criticising the Yogi and Modi governments and routine espousal of Dalit causes mean little. Always pragmatic, she is acutely aware of her dwindling support base and has taken a calculated decision to accommodate the ruling establishment in return for being allowed a token presence. So, it will not be surprising if the party like a decade ago fails to win a single seat in 2024 with an even more depleted vote share – a sad end to an extraordinary political career.

(This article is authored by Ajoy Bose, who is a journalist and author of Behenji: The Rise and Fall of Mayawati)