Maya wins, but by turning Kanshiram's legacy upside down

New Delhi, May 11 (UNI) By bouncing back to victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has proved herself worthy of being its founder leader Kanshiram's successor.

It is an irony, however, that in the process, she has turned upside down the basic political and social premises and strategies of her mentor and guide.

While Mr Kanshiram based his fight against the upper castes of Brahmin, Thakur and Vaish, Ms Mayawati this time cruised to victory taking support of these very castes where possible.

The elections, whose results were declared today, were the first with Mr Kanshiram no more to guide the dalit leader.

Much has changed on the social and political scene since the days when Mr Kanshiram was active in politics, so Mayawati had to chart her own course to lead the party to power.

She distributed a substantial percentage of tickets to upper castes, a master stroke of social engineering that seems to have paid her dividends.

The BSP gave tickets to 86 Brahmins and 38 Rajputs in these elections. As many as 61 Muslims also got the party ticket. Besides there were 110 candidates from the Other Backward Classes(OBCs).

Going in for upper caste candidates in such a big way was much in contrast with the BSP's anti-Manuwadi stand, which has been its identity and hallmark.

The deviation had led many political analaysts to doubt whether the party would be able to convince dalits to vote for those who were so far projected by the party as their worst enemies.

But then, the experiment was not absolutely novel. When Ms Mayawati shook hands with the Bharatiya Janata party in 1995 to become chief minister, she had advanced the argument that temporary alliance even with upper castes was justified for acheiving the ultimate goal of securing power for dalits.

The loss for the BJP is most disturbing. After the Mandal and Mandir movements, the BJP had emerged as the champion of upper castes, but now a clear dent has been made by the BSP in its fort.

One more factor that contributed to the BSP victory was its rejection of any alliances, which gave the electorate an impression that the party if it came to power will be able to give a stable government.

The BSP is poised to get more than 402 seats needed for absolute majority in a House of 403.

The Samajwadi party is coming second with close to hundred seats, the BJP has remained at the third place and the Congress fourth, with all the three parties losing substantially as compared to previous elections.

The origin of the BSP can be traced back to an organisation of government employees called the Backward and Minorities Employees Federation (BAMCEF) formed by Kanshiram in 1973.

He transformed it into a political outfit in December 1982 when he formed the Dalit Soshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti.

The organisation was finally transformed into the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984 with the aim of organsiing Dalit classes into a political force.

The BSP first entered the election fray in 1984 but fared badly losing 207 seats. It came into limelight when Mr Ram fought the Allahabad Lok Sabha bypoll in 1987 against V P Singh, who eventually won the election.

However, later Mr Kanshi Ram was elected to the Lok Sabha twice.

He had also been a member of the Rajya Sabha.

The BSP, under Mr Kanshi Ram's leadership became a political force in UP in the 90s during which Ms Mayawati emerged as number two in the party.

The party got political power for the first time in 1993 when it formed the coalition government with Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP).

UNI