New Delhi: She may not have projected herself as the prime ministerial candidate of the Third Front yet but the dinner hosted by Mayawati for the leaders of the Third Front on Sunday evening gave enough hints that the four-time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh wants to be the first among equals.
“This dinner has got nothing to do with the Third Front’s strategies or who its prime ministerial candidate would be,” Mayawati clarified.
What's more, Mayawati's unilateral decision to fight the elections alone is further indication that it's the BSP chief who is setting the terms. And there is a reason for this strategy before the General Elections.
In 1996, the BSP had an alliance with the Congress in UP. As the BSP's votes are transferable, the Congress ended up gaining more than the BSP in the Assembly.
Since then Mayawati has done it alone and successfully managed to increase BSP's vote share.
If we look at election results from Uttar Pradesh, in the 2002 Assembly elections, BSP's vote share was at 23.06 per cent.
In Lok Sabha elections held two years later, it went up to 24.67 per cent votes in UP and in the 2007 Assembly elections, BSP's vote share rose to 30.42 per cent.
The 2007 victory was in fact made possible by a grand social alliance of Dalits and Brahmins that Mayawati successfully engineered.
The big question now is will Mayawati's caste coalition work this time as well. If it does, the fiery unpredictable Dalit ki beti might just be a step away from becoming the queen bee of the country.
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