Her political vanvas never extended beyond a couple of years and at the peak of her power, Mayawati was always a kingmaker but back to back setbacks in 2012 and then 2014 may have brought Bahan Ji on her knees. Well, the 4-time CM of Uttar Pradesh is herself to blame if she is being pegged at number 3 in a chiefly triangular contest in the 2017 UP elections for the state assembly.
Mayawati and BSP are conspicuously absent from the media buzz. It may very well be the case of peaking out very early as Maya had formalised her candidates nearly 2 years soon after her debacle of 2014.
What went wrong for her has been the absence of what had created her party in the 90s.
Mayawati almost neglected door to door to campaigning. She undoubtedly is a mass leader but is not having a mass connect beyond her core Jatav vote bank. Apart from that, she doesn’t have a credible face in her ranks apart from herself. Her towering persona also did not let a credible second rank of Dalit leadership mushroom in her own party.
For all the other swing votes she is the second choice. For instance, the Muslims find her second best alternative and there are ample of reasons for it. Mayawati was conspicuously silent on the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 or on the death of Mohammed Akhlaq while SP has been quite vocal on both the issues. She put the blame of her defeat on the Muslims for not voting her after her electoral debacle in 2012 Vidhan Sabha polls. She even went tough on the terror modules of Azamgarh during her tenure as CM. The grievances of the Muslim communities are genuine. The Muslim icons rarely find a space on her banners and she is the only one amongst all the secular parties that has allied with the BJP more than often. She didn’t name even one of the newly carved districts after a Muslim icon during her tenure as a CM neither was any scheme or college.
In fact, she acrimoniously dumped Ilyas Azmi and Ali Akbar Dumpy when they criticised the Delhi Police in Parliament for parading the Muslim youth in Batla House. Mayawati has no Muslim agenda ever since it emerged as an alternative to Congress post Babri Demolition apart from fielding of Muslim candidates.
Mayawati never made any reach out to the Muslims and no wonder the Muslim populace is feeling alienated from her.
Maya’s Muslim face Naseemuddin made a mess of the golden opportunity that BJP presented them when its state vice president took a jibe at her by asking to present his daughter. It took out all the sheen of her image of a tough administrator.
Mayawati is herself to be blamed for the ever-decreasing vote share in UP ever since the 2009 Lok Sabha elections when her social engineering phenomena to carve out a rainbow coalition of Muslims, Dalits and Brahmins went for a retrial. It was this social engineering that stormed her power and fetched her an absolute majority in the gigantic UP Vidhan Sabha in 2007.
In fact, Mayawati has no Dalit agenda left with her either. When in power, she was hand in glove with the same capitalists whom she accused of harassing the Dalits. In 2007 she polled 30.5% of the votes which got reduced to 27.42% in 2009 Lok Sabha polls. It further dipped to 25.90% in 2012 and finally to 19.60 % in the 2014 polls. The stats speak contrary to her claims of having retained her core vote bank. Out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats where the Dalits are in excess of 25% of the voters, Mayawati stood second in 19 of them in 2009 polls but stood second in just 11 of them in the 2014 polls. This speaks volumes about her loosening grip on her core vote bank.
The future does not augur well for her. Mayawati just cannot afford another 5 years out of power, being a regional party. Both her opponents don’t have much to lose in the elections. At max, a defeat for BJP will challenge the status of Amit Shah or Modi at the helm of the affairs while Akhilesh still has some time up his sleeves. However, Mayawati has her political existence on the line. A defeat will mean curtains for her forever.
