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Political tour de force

It was `subaltern' power on spectacular display across Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party defied sceptics to win an astonishing 200+ of 403 seats on the basis of a vote share exceeding 30 per cent. The BSP pulled off this brilliant victory in the face of innumerable odds. A Bahujan party with a core Dalit vote, it lacked the social skills and visibility of its opponents — a factor that seemed, paradoxically, to work to its advantage. The electoral arena was crowded with contestants, among them the Samajwadi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, and a score of smaller parties and independents — in all 2972 candidates from 117 parties besides 2275 independents. In the event, the result was almost one-sided, disproving conventional wisdom that pointed to a fractured mandate. The last time any party won a majority on its own in U.P. was in 1991, when the BJP secured 221of 425 seats with a vote share of 31.45 per cent. The saffron party rode to office on the back of a divisive campaign conducted in the backdrop of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. By contrast, the BSP scored in an attempt to bridge the social divide: the party's emphasis through its campaign was on sarvajan samaj. Established citadels crumbled as Mayawati's elephant marched across the State, penetrating social blocks previously outside its reach. The feisty BSP supremo achieved for her party what Bhim Rao Ambedkar could only dream of and what her mentor Kanshi Ram envisioned but could not realise in his own life time.

The BSP more than doubled its 2002 tally, topping the charts in every geographical region, from Western U.P. and Rohelkhand at one end to Avadh and Purvanchal at the other. The BSP's gains translated into major losses for its rivals. The Samajwadi Party held its overall vote share but saw its seats tally decline by one-third while the BJP recorded its worst performance since 1991. The Congress ran a high-profile campaign with Rahul Gandhi at the helm. But his roadshows, lapped up by television channels hungry for footage of the first family, ended up as just that — an over-hyped media event. The BJP too went on a publicity overdrive. Party strategists seized on limited success in the civic polls to project tall claims of the party's resurgence. Simultaneously, they attempted to raise the communal temperature through recourse to inflammatory campaign material, including the poisonous compact disc currently under the scanner of the Election Commission of India. The BJP leaders made sectarian speeches, focussing on issues — terrorism, Mohammad Afzal's hanging, the Sachar committee report, and so forth — that they thought would polarise votes on communal lines. The strategy backfired. Hindus and Muslims alike refused to swallow the bait.

The opinion and exits polls consistently over-projected the BJP even as they failed to gauge the full extent of the subterranean support for the BSP. Ms. Mayawati's campaign was conducted mostly away from the glare of the cameras — a strategically intelligent move that helped her organisation concentrate on the task at hand. The BSP's rivals spent valuable time at the television studios. Ms. Mayawati's party worked silently and assiduously on the ground, wooing previously adversarial social groups through a series of bhaichara (caste amity) campaigns. The breakthrough came with the success of its Brahmin jodo abhiyan (`take the Brahmins along' project). To get a sense of this socio-political achievement, consider the traditional hostility between Brahmins and the BSP. If Brahmins held the BSP in contempt, the latter ceaselessly targeted `manuwadis,' reserving its choicest epithets for them. Interestingly, each time the BJP aligned with the BSP, the former's share of votes and seats went down. Attributing this to forward caste disapproval of the alliances, the BJP finally ended its off-on relationship with the BSP. That sections of the same forward castes have now shown a willingness to cohabit with the BSP is an irony too large to miss. However, it was not only Brahmins that the BSP co-opted as it went about enlarging its base. The Bahujan party reached out to all sections through a network of committed zonal commanders, each on a mission to integrate one social group or another. Preliminary findings suggest that Ms. Mayawati's party secured a large share of OBC votes besides the votes of Muslims.

It is tempting to attribute the BSP's extraordinary triumph to arithmetic. However, to do so is to overlook the hard work and dedication of a party that has transformed itself from a bahujan party with narrow caste interests to a sarvajan party attractive to various social groups and communities. Mention must also be made of a subtle change in the public perception of Ms. Mayawati. Not long ago, her image was that of a leader of a single-caste party, given to abusive language, obsessed with the manuwadi system, and wasting resources on extravagant projects when in power. Today, the image is that of an independent and confident leader who is expected to deliver efficient and people-oriented governance. A final word on the Election Commission of India's sterling contribution to the democratic process. Its strategic planning, hard work, impartiality, far-sightedness, and no-nonsense supervision ensured that not one life was lost to violence and not one polling booth was seized by toughs. For the people of Uttar Pradesh, the ECI is as much a hero as their Chief Minister-in-waiting.

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