Mayawati in favour of giving tickets in UP to around 40 candidates from upper castes

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 6

BSP chief Mayawati is in favour of giving party tickets to about 40 candidates from upper castes for the upcoming Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.

The election to the 403-seat Assembly will be held in February-March 2022.

A well-placed source in the BSP said the number of tickets to be given to members from the upper caste by Mayawati might go in view of the identities of the candidates put up by the opponent parties.

Mayawati has a robust and loyal cadre of Scheduled Castes in all constituencies and is considered to have the charisma to influence their voting pattern, including transference of votes to non-Dalit nominees.

The BSP is engaged in social engineering of castes, especially to build up a combination of Scheduled Castes and Brahmins in view of the Assembly election. It has held a slew of conclaves and conferences of the Brahmin community across the state.

However, the party has also kept an eye on other upper castes, including Bhumihar and Vaishya communities.

The BSP’s social engineering experiment in 2009 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh had been a raging success helping the party to come to power on its own.

There will be four-cornered contests in UP among the ruling BJP and its allies, the Samajwadi Party and its allies, the BSP, and the Congress.

The BSP leadership has taken note of the Congress activism, which is also aimed at its core Dalit vote bank. The BJP has also made a dent among Most Backward Castes and some sections of the Scheduled Castes.

The Samajwadi Party is also making efforts to corner the Muslim votes, among which the BSP also had influence in the past.

BSP insiders say the coming Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh is politically crucial for Mayawati and the legacy of Bahujan movement started by the party founder, late Kanshi Ram.