Tough time for BSP as Mayawati losing her hold among Dalits, say experts

BSP faces big challenges as the Mayawati-led party has started preparing for the UP panchayat polls, expected to be held soon.

With a continuous fall among its voters, it is a tough time for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to stay relevant in Uttar Pradesh politics as the party has been losing its ground since 2012. Now Dalit leader and BSP chief Mayawati wants to make her party's presence felt in the panchayat elections for which she is holding meetings with party coordinator, preparing the list of candidates, and discussing the party's strategy for a comeback in panchayat elections. Politically isolated, and missing from the hard-core political arena, BSP supremo Mayawati's political discussions, and political activities have now been limited to tweets. On the other hand, BSP faces big challenges with local leaders shifting teams, losing core vote bank and Mayawati's absence from hard political issues. Gradually the disillusionment among BSP leaders and general workers is also increasing. This came after Mayawati went behind the scenes after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Now, she has been keeping her distance from party leaders and is only vocal on political issues on Twitter which has affected her image among the core voters. Many prominent faces of the BSP have also joined the rival Samajwadi Party and it is believed that as the Assembly Elections get closer, more shifts can be seen. Mayawati has resorted to Dalit-Muslim or Dalit-Muslim-Brahman formula in the past but it is no longer effective for her as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) broke down the non-Jatav voters in 2017. In the 2007 UP Legislative Assembly Elections, when the party won a majority, the BSP received nearly 30 per cent of the vote. However, it went down to 26 per cent in 2012. Then in 2017, this percentage fell further down to 22 per cent and further during 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, the BSP had a vote share of only 19.3 percent, with mostly Dalits.