Mayawati remark: Did BJP just kiss goodbye to its chances in UP?

Mayawati remark: Did BJP just kiss goodbye to its chances in UP?

Dayashankar’s remark on Mayawati is the symptom of a bigger disease running in the party. How the BJP leadership handles it would be interesting to watch.

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Mayawati remark: Did BJP just kiss goodbye to its chances in UP?

Belonging to a party which is part of an intellectual eco-system that generally revels in low talk, vicious personal attacks and theatrics, Uttar Pradesh BJP leader Dayashankar Singh does not surprise much with his intemperate utterances against BSP leader Mayawati. The only problem is it comes at a wrong time for the BJP. Assembly election is round the corner in the state and it’s a critical one for the party. And the state vice president’s attack is so direct that it cannot be buried under convoluted arguments, a tactic the party usually resorts to in such situations. Action or no action against Singh, the BJP might just have kissed good-bye to its chances in the state.

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The attack on Mayawati at this juncture has the potential to upset the carefully drawn strategy of the party to woo Dalits to its fold. It has been following the strategy diligently over the last many months, convinced that polarisation games might neutralise the Samajwadi Party to a big extent, but weaning Dalits away from the BSP needed a much subtler approach. With Muslim voters already alienated and the 2014 pro-Modi euphoria no more visible, it can hardly afford to displease the Dalits, the latter’s core social base. Singh has managed to provide the BSP, which was so far directionless, a major talking point before the election, and Mayawati is no fool in politics to let go of the godsend.

Representational image. Reuters

To make matters worse for the BJP, this development comes in the backdrop of televised images of Dalit youths being beaten up mercilessly by members of a cow protection group in Gujarat. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state grapples with the biggest Dalit agitation in years — as many as 17 have tried killing themselves so far, according to media reports — the general anti-Dalit image of the party has only got accentuated. If it were the Muslims, the party would have put up a strong defence for the assaulters with some clever spin, but Dalits throw a different challenge.

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First, a section of the powerful Patel community and now the Dalits, it is obvious to the opposition parties that the social engineering that helped the BJP thrive in Gujarat is falling apart. They also realise that the fundamental incompatibility between the ideology of the Hindutva groups that claim closeness to the BJP and the existential Indian social reality has started surfacing. They would be eager to carry the message from Gujarat to battle ground Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere. Mayawati, in particular, would utilise the opportunity to keep her flock together.

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Obviously, the BJP leadership would be cursing Dayashankar and all such loud-mouths in the party for its predicament. But haven’t such characters been integral to the party that treats nastiness as a political asset? Having all kinds of hate-mongers under one umbrella may be politically expedient at one point but in the long run it can only bring disaster. It can justify, in whatever crooked manner, citing ideology, the attacks on Muslims and Christians, and even the liberals and the secular, but how can it do so in case of attacks on lower castes? Sooner rather than latter it is going to recoil on the BJP. A social backlash would be much more damaging for it than a political backlash.

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Can the party stop them? Not really, given the fact that the cultural and educational gap between those at the top rungs of the party and the fringes is so huge. Arun Jaitely and Yogi Adityanath, Sushma Swraj and Sadhvi Prachi, Suresh Prabhu and Griraj Kishore in one bracket look strange. The middle space between the extremes is too shallow to bridge the divide. Thus despite the great irritation shown by Modi, Jaitley and other seniors, expect those at the bottom to keep making ridiculous statements and the fringe Hindutva groups to run their own agenda – for example, who’s going to stop the Gau Raksha army? They will keep alienating Dalits.

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Dayashankar’s remark on Mayawati is the symptom of a bigger disease running in the party. How the BJP leadership handles it would be interesting to watch.

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