Mayawati to Contest 2024 Lok Sabha Polls Alone, Know Reason Behind BIG Announcement

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh: Amid rumours of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) joining the INDI bloc, Mayawati on Monday stated that her party will go solo in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections and will fight on all seats against every party. BSP will neither join hands with Opposition nor with the ruling NDA and work independently in Uttar Pradesh, she added. 

Addressing reporters on the occassion of her 68th birthday, the Uttar Pradesh former Chief Minister Mayawati said, “There are lot of speculations that I am retiring from politics but it's not true. Akash Anand is now successor of the party and I will continue to strengthen the party in Uttar Pradesh ahead of Lok Sabha polls. The party works for poor and marginalised community and we are committed towards the party and not withdrawing from political arena.”

The decline of BSP started after 2012 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. However, Mayawati in 2012 asseted that loss of her votes is majorly because of shift of Muslim votes in the pockets of Samajwadi Party. The decline of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh in 2022 is nothing short of a collapse.

The Rise and Fall of Mayawati in Electoral Politics

In 2007, BSP won a small majority in the state assembly- 206 out of 403 seats- with 30.4 per cent of the votes. The fragmentation of the electorate meant that winning thresholds were generally low at the constituency level on an average of 35 per cent of the vote from 2002 to 2012. In 2012, the Bahujan Samaj Party captured 80 seats with 25.9 per cent of the vote. In 2017, it garnered only 19 seats with a 22.2 per cent vote share. After the 2017 elections, most commentators thought that the party had reached its floor.

In 2022, however, the Bahujan Samaj Party suffered a massive electoral loss with vote percentage dipping to 12.9. The party has now been reduced to a single seat in Rasra, Ballia district, which elected Umashankar Singh, a first-time contestant who has a business background.

Since the inception of Bahujan Samaj Party in 1984, the party was known for using wealth, power and focusing on caste engineering to woo the voters. Most of party's candidates came from a business background and used their wealth to enter politics by acquiring Bahujan Samaj Party tickets which more than with other parties happened to be for sale. Since 2014 Lok Sabha elections, divide in Non-Jatav Dalit vote banks led to the start of decline of BSP in it's major strong pockets.

Decoding the Dalit votebank in Uttar Pradesh, Political Activist Ram Kumar told Republic, “Call it the travesty of the the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as it recorded the third-largest share of votes across the country, but didn't win a single seat in 2014 . The party's vote share stood at 4.2% after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 31.3%  and the Congress's 19.5%.”

"In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the BSP secured 19.82 per cent of the votes in Uttar Pradesh, against 27.42 per cent in the 2009 elections. Another reason behind Mayawati's defeat is her failure to unite the socially backward with the upper castes. In her quest to garner both Muslims and upper cast, Mayawati ignored her core voters which is Jatavs and scheduled class. She took them for granted. Their leaders would simply ignore Dalits to favour Muslims."

"In 2019 the BSP SP "Mahagathbandhan" in which BSP contested on 38 seats and won 10 seats while SP contested on 37 seats won 5 seats in Uttar Pradesh . The social engineering formula of bringing Brahmins, Dalits, Muslims and OBCs together backlashed the SP-BSP alliance. Both parties parted ways after elections stating that the other partner didn't ensure transfer of votes, The first one to break the alliance was BSP. Many claim the press conference by Mayawati in which she announced breaking ties with SP was not even informed to Akhilesh Yadav. BSPs vote share in 2019 was 1.84 per cent," he added. 

'Many Reasons to Not Join Opposition Bloc' 

BSP MP Malook Nagar said, “Congress has always backstabbed BSP and there are many reasons for BSP to not join opposition forces. In 2018, after the Madhya pradesh, Rajasthan elections, several sitting BSP MLAs were bribed and they switched sides and joined Congress party. In Madhya Pradesh, 7 BSP MLAs, in Rajasthan 6 BSP MLAs and 3 BSP MLAs in Uttarakhand changed sides.” 

“In Madhya Pradesh, the winds of change was seen when the Congress party broke the unity in BSP and managed to sway MLA's to their side, subsequently ditching BSP. This happened when BSP unconditionally supported Congress in these states. If Congress would have stayed on pact then today BSP would have joined INDI bloc but Congress didn't appologise and not even agreed to BSPs 2 year earlier demand to make Mayawati the PM candidate of opoosition,” he said.  

“Today Behenji Mayawati declined the speculations and this will benefit BJP directly in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. By 2029, Congress will completely Vanish from country, the downfall of Grand old party has started. In 2019, BSP bagged 20.5 per cent votes and in 2022 UP Assembly, BSP bagged 13.5 per cent votes. So BSPs vote bank is still intact with BSP. Yes the situation is not same as 2009 but party is working on ground to strengthen the cadre and revive the lost trust amongst dalits and Jatavs,” the BSP MP added. 

SP MP Clears Air on Truce with BSP

Samajwadi Party MP from Moradabad St Hassan, said, “I was earlier also surprised why Congress leaders were making such vague statements on BSP-SP truce and BSP joining INDI bloc. Mayawati in October 2023 cleared the air and hinted that BSP will fight alone in Loksabha elections.”

“Samajwadi Party was shocked in 2019 as BSP broke the ties and to strengthen ties again, no such effort was done by Mayawati. Akhikesh Yadav got to know through a press meet only that BSP has broken ties in 2019. Congress will be only at loss with BSP not joining hands because now Dalits don't vote Mayawati widely and have switched largely to BJP. BJPs social stategy on ground to attract OBCs and Dalits through several schemes will work in there favour. Only 7% votebank of Jatav will vote for BSP.” 

“The exodus of BSP started when tall leaders like Swami Prasad Maurya, Lalji Verma, Babu Singh Kushwaha, Nakul dubey, Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Ram Achal Rajbhar, left the party costing a huge dent to the party in Uttar Pradesh. BSP from 21 seats in 2009 fell to zero seats in 2014, this is the reality of BSP," he added. 

Giving clarification on Congress-SP ties, he said, "As for Samajwadi Party, all is well between Akhilesh and Rahul Gandhi. Within 15 days, seat sharing arrangement would be finalised. Akhilesh Yadav has clearly told Congress leaders that the sitting seats will be fought again by SP and larger seat share will be with SP as it is the largest opposition party in Uttar Pradesh. Congress should only contest on the winnable seats because it has lost major vote share in Uttar Pradesh. "