Jumbo task ahead

Geetanjali Gayatri  in Chandigarh

Call it a compulsion or an ambition, but the Bahujan Samaj Party’s elephant is looking at the next elections in Haryana through the spectacles of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). It is the BSP’s alliance partner, and they are both hoping to pole vault to power with each other’s support.

If the INLD is desperate to come back to power in the state after being out for three terms, the BSP supremo Mayawati is aiming to lead the third front at the national level, and the alliances at the state level are just the steps in that direction. 

The opposition parties — the INLD and the Congress — seem to have eyes only for the BSP.  This is despite the fact that the party only has one MLA and nearly 5 per cent vote share to its credit, which could be a game-changer.

In the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP won a vote share of 33.20 per cent, the INLD got 24.73 per cent and the Congress got 20.58 per cent. The BSP netted nearly 4.4 per cent of the vote share, which makes it the only other party to have any standing in Haryana among the big players netting small gains.

Though the BSP may not be able to cash in on the Dalit vote bank to win seats in the Assembly elections, it can sway the fortunes of bigger players to their advantage in a triangular contest. This makes the party the number one choice for an alliance. Plus, there is absolutely no scope for any kind of compromise between the INLD and the Congress in a state where the two have always been at opposite ends of the electoral battle.

This leaves the decision of choosing its alliance partner entirely to the BSP, despite being a poor fourth in the vote-share percentage. While the INLD believes it has hit a jackpot by announcing a pre-poll alliance well in advance before the Assembly elections, the Congress, too, is making no bones about the options still being open despite the INLD-BSP pre-poll alliance.  

The BSP, with one tie-up under its belt, too, is maintaining a studied silence as it watches political developments from the sidelines. 2019 is a different ball game and they are in it together.