BSP now want to expand its base outside Uttar Pradesh

Lucknow: Growing clout of the Chandra Shekhar 'Ravan' led Bhim Army in north India prompted the Bahujan Samaj Party to expand its base outside Uttar Pradesh and forge alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal for the Punjab assembly elections next year.

BSP forging alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal hopes to leverage its position in UP assembly elections in 2022. Mayawati is the four time former chief minister of UP.

Chandra Shekhar Ravana is considered close to the Congress and had been meeting the Congress general secretary Priyanka Vadra in recent past. Bhim army is likely to forge electoral understanding with the Congress in 2022 UP assembly elections.

Barring in 1993, the alliance in UP or outside the state has never paid electoral dividends to the BSP, this time the party is confident that it will rebound in Punjab and that will make positive impact on its political fortunes in north Indian states.

In 1993, BSP had entered into alliance with the Samajwadi party and formed the government, where it was junior partner and Mulayam Singh Yadav was the chief minister. The alliance lasted for 18 months and ended in a disaster with the state guest house incident in Lucknow in June 1995, where an attempt was made by the Samajwadi party cadres to physically harm the then BSP general secretary Mayawati.

Political observers here on Sunday, however, say the alliance, while good for optics, will not yield much electoral equity for either of the two parties. Of the 117 seats in Punjab assembly, the BSP will contest in 20 seats and SAD will contest in the remaining seats. The two parties had been in an alliance before partying ways in 1996.  Punjab gave the BSP its first MP in 1989 when Harbhajan Lakha won from the Phillaur constituency. Party founder Kanshi Ram also hailed from the state, in which Dalits are 32 per cent of the population.

Party founder Kanshi Ram also hailed from the state, in which Dalits are 32 per cent of the population. But the BSP has never been a serious contender in Punjab. Its highest tally in the state came in the 1992 assembly elections, when the party won nine seats and secured 16.32 per cent of the vote share. Since then, it has been all downhill.

''The alliance will have no impact either in Punjab or Uttar Pradesh as the objective of the alliance is only to weaken the Congress in Punjab. BSP chief Mayawati had been consistently working to weaken the Congress in all Hindi states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. During the July 2020 crisis in Rajasthan due to rebellion of state Congress president Sachin Pilot, Mayawati had taken a rabid anti congress stand and had supported the rebel who wanted to topple the Ashok Gehlot government'', said Dr Ravi Kant, a dalit ideologue and assistant professor in Lucknow university.

The BSP had 19 MLAs in the UP legislative assembly but after rebellion of 9 lawmakers, including Ramvir Upadhyaya, Anil Singh, Aslam Raini, Aslam Ali, Mujtaba Siddiqui, Hakim Lal Bind, Hargovind Bhargava, Sushma Patel, Vandana Singh as well as recent expulsion of Lalji Verma and Ramachal Rajbhar, the party's effective strength has since been reduced to seven MLAs.

BSP is however remains unfazed by depletion in its strength in the UP assembly. ''Elections are round the corner and in an election year the current strength of parties in assembly has little relevance as defections are common in election year. We are concentrating on our core strength and we are confident of turnaround in our electoral fortunes in 2022 both in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab'', said a senior BSP leader. (UNI)