The BSP’s moves in Aligarh, Ghaziabad and Lakhimpur Kheri are indicative of a clever strategy of appealing to particular caste groups. Making last-minute changes, Hitendra Kumar alias Bunty Upadhyay (till recently with BJP) was named from Aligarh, whereas the previous BSP nominee was Gufran Noor, formerly with AIMIM. In Ghaziabad, a last-minute change saw Nandkishore Pundir, a Thakur candidate disgruntled with the BJP being name as BSP nominee, whereas the earlier candidate Anshay Kalra, a Punjabi real estate businessman from Kaushambi, was shifted to Kheri, which has a strong Punjabi and Sikh population. In Kannauj, for long a Samajwadi Party stronghold, the party has fielded a Muslim Imran Jafar. Brahmins have also been put up in Unnao and Mirzapur.When the BSP had alliesThe BSP had allied with the SP twice — once in 1993, and then in 2017. Its alliance with BJP saw Mayawati become Chief Minister thrice. Since 2007, the party has failed to get good results in any election in UP, despite having run through all combinations. For example, in the 2023 Urban Local Bodies election, it had put up 11 Muslims for 17 Mayoral posts, but all of them lost. In the 2022 Assembly election, it had put up 89 Muslims, ensuring the defeat of the SP in many places. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, it had allied with the SP and the combo won 15 seats – 10 for BSP and 5 for SP. The 2017 Assembly election saw SP and Congress contesting as an alliance, but winning only 54 seats, while BSP had to be content with 19. In the 2014 Lok Sabha electio, BSP failed to win any seat. It was in the 2007 Assembly election that the BSP had come to power in the state with a full majority, winning 206 seats.The new betDespite the 2019 Lok Sabha election showing, allying with the SP has not been particularly advantageous for the BSP, and there have been no long-term benefits from such an alliance. In the last few months, there had been many overtures from the SP for a possible tie-up but Mayawati remained adamant and did not respond to them. It now appears that the BSP is instead betting on the new social engineering formula to get favourable results. It also noteworthy that Mayawati has announced her nephew Akash Anand as her political successor. It will only be natural on her part to want to hand over the party to him with a healthy vote share and a few seats. Hence, the extra effort in candidate selection. The announcement of names for rest of the seats in UP will indicate more facets of this strategy.
Source link
