For revival, BSP eyes Muslim, Brahmin, Dalit voter support

Tribune News Service

Neeraj Mohan

New Delhi, March 18

Struggling for its revival, ex-CM Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is likely to play Muslim, Brahmin and Dalit cards in the western Uttar Pradesh in which most of the seats will go for poll in first and second round.

Electioneering is picking up in the western UP as most of the constituencies will be covered in the first two phases as Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzzafarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina, Muradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit will go for voting in the first phase on April 19, while Amroha, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Aligarh and Mathura will be voting in the second round on April 26.

The BSP has unveiled its candidates for 14 seats and most of them are from the Muslim and Jat dominated western UP. Five are Muslims and four are Brahmins, indicating the BSP has adopted its old caste mathematics of Dalit, Brahmin and Muslim combination to target Jats and OBCs of the rivals. Moreover, the BSP has also fielded one each candidate from Gurjar, Jat, Kshatriya and OBC.

Most of seats in the western UP are with the Samajwadi Party as the Congress has got only Saharanpur, Mathura and Amroha. The BSP’s strategy may play a dampener for the SP-Congress alliance and may help the BJP and the RLD, indirectly, by dividing the Muslim votes. Even, the BSP has also sprang a surprise by fielding a Gurjar, Praveen Bhainsla, from the Jat-dominated Baghpat, the seat once considered as RLD’s pocket borrow. This caste equation had played well for the BSP in 2019 when it won 10 Lok Sabha seats with a 19.26% vote share against the 49.56% of the BJP and 17.96% of the Samajwadi Party which could win only five seats.

With nearly 26% population (as per 2001 census), Muslims in the western UP have the highest population share against the overall percentage of 19.3% in the state. In some districts, such as Moradabad, Sambhal, Bijnor, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Amroha, the Muslim population is above 40% as they have a considerable vote share in over 50 Assembly seats in this region.

Division of votes

The BSP’s strategy may play a dampener for the SP-Congress alliance and may help the BJP and the RLD, indirectly, by dividing Muslim votes.

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