BSP aims to galvanise ‘old’ Dalit-EBC combination through new U.P. chief

The Gadariya community to which State president Vishwanath Pal belongs is in sizeable numbers, in central and eastern U.P

With the recent appointment of Vishwanath Pal, belonging from ’Gadariya’ (Extremely Backward Caste) community as its Uttar Pradesh State president, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is eyeing to revive its EBC vote bank and return to the Muslim-Dalit-EBC calculus for the upcoming elections, after realising that despite its multiple attempts, the Brahmin community which helped it to emerge victorious in 2007, was likely to remain with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Party supremo Mayawati while announcing the elevation of Mr. Pal highlighted his EBC roots, and hoped that the appointment would help the BSP in bringing the numerically- significant caste groups under the Party’s fold.

“Vishwanath Pal is an old, diligent and faithful worker of the BSP. I am sure that he would mobilise support for the extremely backward castes with the BSP, and work wholeheartedly to increase the support base of the Party,” said Ms. Mayawati. Mr. Pal, a native of Ayodhya replaces Bhim Rajbhar, who has been appointed the coordinator of Bihar. The Gadariya community to which Mr. Pal belongs is in sizeable numbers, in central and eastern U.P.

In the political corridors of the State, it is argued that after reaching a historic low in the 2022 Assembly polls, the Party leadership’s best bet was to galvanise the old combination of the early 1990s, when along with Dalits, it brought a section of EBC groups within its umbrella resulting in the Party becoming a formidable force in U.P. In 1995 and 1997, Bhagwat Pal and Dayaram Pal, two EBC leaders, were at the helm of the Party in the State helping it to make inroads within the EBC groups, and denting the ‘Mandal’ formula of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and non-Yadav OBC ‘outreach’ of the BJP through Kalyan Singh. The dalit and a section of EBC support played a crucial role for the Party to garner 19.64% votes and win 67 Assembly seats in the 1996 Vidhan Sabha polls, helping it to emerge as a prime player in the electoral horizon of the State.

All the recent actions of the BSP like the appointment of Imran Masood — an influential Muslim face — as the west U.P. coordinator, the appointment of Mr. Pal; the continuous attack of Ms. Mayawati on the Samajwadi Party (SP) and reaching out to the Muslim community are aimed at transforming U.P. into a three-cornered electoral contest amid the recent Assembly poll verdict, indicating the State has moved towards a bi-polar political battlefield with the SP emerging as the sole challenger to the ruling BJP. The BSP had last tested a major electoral success in the 2007 Assembly polls, and since then its electoral base has been continuously eroding, and has reached its lowest point in three decades in the 2022 Assembly polls,when the Party won a lone Assembly seat, and reduced to a vote share of 12.8%.

The BSP watchers and analysts who followed the State’s politics believe it will be a challenging task for the Party to make inroads among the EBCs as the caste groups comprising the latter have moved towards the BJP or the SP in the recent decade. Since the 2017 Assembly polls, the Party has done several experiments by appointing Muslim, OBC leaders in key positions, but has not helped to stop the downslide.

“Vishwanath Pal is not a known EBC leader, now symbolic appointments hardly works. The BSP has made an attempt to reach out to the EBC castes through Mr. Pal, but until you don’t have a robust organisational structure and connect with the ground, this will not work,” said Shashi Kant Pandey, a political scientist who teaches in Central University, Lucknow.