BSP supremo Mayawati has thrown Congress’ math on the forthcoming Lok Sabha election haywire, well not completely. The party has ignored plans of a Lok Sabha election mahagathbandhan and announced that it will not be in an alliance with the grand old party for Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan assembly polls. This comes days after BSP decided to side step the Congress in Chhattisgarh and ally with Ajit Jogi’s nascent Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC).
The BSP chief appears to be disillusioned with the way Congress leaders have been approaching the political scenario and made references to senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh for acting in fear of being targetted by the BJP through Enforcement Directorate and the CBI.
Mayawati may have slammed the door on the Congress, but has left a small window open if we go by the tone of her speech. While speaking well of Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, she has come down hard on senior leaders like Digvijay Singh for playing spoilsport. And it is here the Congress is still seeing a silver lining.
The Congress may have missed the Assembly bus, but they can’t afford to ignore Mayawati, or for that matter any of the alliance partners, for the Lok Sabha polls. Contentious issues will have to be sorted out on an urgent basis and the Congress president will have to personally get involved rather than leaving it to his senior team. The mahagathbandhan will be the cynosure of all political eyes in what is seen as a make or break contest for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A three-cornered contest will work to the advantage of the BJP in states where it is in power. Going by statistics on vote share, it is clear that results could have been different if the Congress and BSP had to fight polls together. The advantage to the BSP is that it draws it strength from the significant dalit votes in all three states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
By going alone or allying with a regional player, the BSP will eat into a sizable Congress vote thereby putting them at a huge disadvantage. The recent Gujarat election is an example where the Congress, despite putting a credible show, failed to dislodge the BJP, thanks to the BSP. In the 20 seats that Congress lost in Gujarat, there were BSP candidates pulling in over 2000 votes, and that says it all.
Mayawati’s decision of ignoring the Congress could also mean that she is testing the waters for taking on the leadership herself without forfeiting the advantage to Congress.
The very fact that Congress reciprocated softly respecting Mayawati’s opinion and even Digvijay responding gently expressing his respect for the BSP supremo, is all indicative of the fact that the process of damage control is in the offing. Differences will have to be ironed out before the grand alliance plans go crashing ahead of the big contest.
