‘Unpredictable’ BSP gears up to fight all 90 seats

Deepender Deswal

The wayward run of the ‘elephant’ (election symbol of the Bahujan Samaj Party) continues in Haryana. The party has been entering into political alliances and also snapping ties with an equal ease. 

Political observers say that the unpredictable behaviour of the BSP is equally predictable when it comes to making a guess about the longevity of its alliance in Haryana.   

After partnering with the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) headed by former Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala for 26 days, BSP supremo Mayawati broke ties with an announcement on her official twitter account on September 6. She said that the BSP was terminating the alliance due to the unfair treatment meted out to them by the JJP in seat sharing. The BSP and the JJP had announced a tie-up on August 11 with seat sharing as 40 (BSP) 50 (JJP). 

Though the snapping of ties came as a bolt from the blue for the JJP leadership, political observers say that it was not an unexpected behaviour by the BSP leadership given its track record of making and breaking alliances at the drop of a hat not only in Haryana but also in other states. The party’s decisions in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh indicated a similar impulsive behaviour in the politics of alliances.

In Haryana, the BSP had pre-poll pacts with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) and the Haryana Lok Dal Rashtriya (HLDR), an earlier avtar of the INLD. Except for its alliance with the HLDR, the BSP was unable to have a significant impact in elections with allies. The party in alliance with the HLDR won the Ambala seat in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections when BSP candidate Aman Kumar Nagra emerged victorious while the HLDR won four of the seven seats it contested.

In 2009, the BSP allied with Kuldeep Bishnoi’s HJC just before the Assembly elections. But the two parties broke up just after two and a half months when BSP leader Man Singh Manhera on April 2, 2009, made an announcement to end the arrangement. 

The party experimented yet again when it joined hands with the INLD before the recent Lok Sabha elections. But the infighting in the Chautala family and the split in the INLD was a reason enough for the BSP chief to part ways with it despite efforts by Abhay Singh Chautala to keep the alliance intact. 

After terminating its nine-month pact with the INLD, the BSP immediately took BJP rebel Rajkumar Saini, who had floated the Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP), aboard. The BSP-LSP coalition contested all 10 seats in 2019 and secured around 6 per cent votes (BSP 3.6 per cent). 

Devi Dass, a political observer and Dalit activist based in Jind, says that the BSP has failed to install a credible leadership in Haryana, which was the biggest reason for its poor performance over the years. “The party could not win over different Scheduled Castes (SC). Barring the caste Mayawati belongs to, other SC communities have not accepted the party in Haryana,” he adds. 

Dass says that Mayawati’s loyal vote bank among Dalits tempts political parties to have an alliance with her party. “The BSP, right from the days of Kanshi Ram, has an appeal among Dalits, who have been consistently voting for and supporting the party. This vote bank gets transferred to other party that fights the elections in alliance with the BSP” he adds. 

Meghraj, BSP in-charge of party affairs in Haryana, says that being a national party, the BSP has been preparing to contest all 90 Assembly seats in Haryana. The party has a pan-Haryana appeal among various sections of society. BSP chief Mayawati has directed the state unit to start preparations to fight the elections in all 90 Assembly seats.