Something unheard of happened down south in the hotbed of Dravidian politics. The Hindustan Times reports that
The massive crowd turnout, its hysterical reaction to Modi?s arrival on stage at the Thuglak anniversary and the thunderous cheer to his nearly one-hour speech had Tamil Nadu?s BJP leaders wondering whether they finally had the charismatic campaigner who can breach the Dravidian fort for the BJP.
While the BJP breaching the dravidian fort maybe a pipe dream for a long time come, Thuglak Editor Cho Ramaswamy surmised it well
??I welcome the merchant of death to ? corruption, official apathy, terrorism, darkness and despair.?
With Jayalalitha dishing out a 43 course lunch to Modi the BJP maybe beginning to re-stitch its string of pearls alliance strategy. While allies are important, it is even more important to pay attention to the new BJP strategy, glimpses of which have made it to the media after the first meeting of the BJP?s 19-member central election management committee .?
The Telegraph reports?that :
?The BJP has identified 297 parliamentary seats for special attention in the next general election. These are the seats the party won once or more in elections since 1989. The ?winnable? seats have been classified as A+, A, B+, etc. For instance, the 43 seats the party has never lost since 1991 have been graded A+ (A plus). Some it has won twice or thrice ? and among those it has won only once, some have always given it a large share of votes. In the coming weeks, the party will size up the 297 seats. The central poll committee will get the profile of 138 of these from its sitting MPs, while a team of 30 will be formed to study the remaining 159 within a fixed timetable.
While the past may no longer be a reliable guide to the future with De-limitation re-classifying reserved seats and redrawing constituency boundaries, it is the rise of destiny’s other daughter that may give the BJP some hope.
Mayawati marked her 52nd birthday on an ominous note to the Congress with a call for trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh. Little wonder that both Congress Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it a point to greet her.
So why exactly is Mayawati pushing for splitting Uttar Pradesh if smaller states have been the death knell of regional parties ?
To understand Mayawati’s gamble we need to look ahead on the strategy or combination of strategies that will serve the Bahujan Samaj Party’s long term objectives. Mayawati has left no one in doubt on her long term aspirations of becoming the nation’s first Dalit Prime Minister but then Mayawati is no Gujral or Gowda or for that a matter a Yadav or Naidu. She neither has the patience nor the accomodation for a 3rd front type lame duck arrangement that will make her Prime Minister in name only. Her win in the recent Uttar Pradesh election has shown us that the scenario that best suits the BSP is one in which it is no longer at the mercy of coalition politics.
It is this aspect of her personality and her preferrred political arrangement that should offer us clues on where she is headed. By trifurcating UP she is gambling on driving a death knell into Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. The SP which has reduced itself into an unholy nexus of special interests lead by an ageing Yadav out of touch with reality may not have the capacity for alternate power centers in a trifurcated state. A?weakened SP would lock Mayawati’s?hold on Uttar?Pradesh come Lok Sabha elections. It would also do something more ….
So here you have a party that swears by the poor, can reach out to upper caste Brahmins and lower caste Dalits alike, has a majority hold on what was once Uttar Pradesh to corner a lion’s share of Lok Sabha seats, what does that remind you ?
The Indira Gandhi lead Congress in its hey days.
That is exactly the social coalition that Mayawati is looking to re-stitch as she sets her eyes on New Delhi by looking beyond UP’s broken borders. In fact it would not be an exaggeration to predict that if everything goes well for this destiny’s daughter, Mayawati can indeed become the central pole of Left of Center Social Justice politics in the decade to come laying what is left of the Congress by the wayside.
Which brings us back to the BJP’s destination 300 calculation ?
If the BSP continues along its current path to start attracting the social coalition that once made up the Congress’ vote bank, it will start expanding at the expense of the Congress to solidify the BJP’s prospects in those 297 seats that it once won.
Offstumped Bottomline: Mayawati may very well be Rahul Gandhi’s nemesis in the years to come as she prepares to undo the social coalition that kept the Congress in business over the decades. The trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh could see the beginning of the?BSP’s rise eventually at the Congress’ expense in the rest of the nation. As the BJP sets its eye on 300 odd Lok Sabha seats it would do well to lend a helping hand to destiny’s this Daughter to help itself.
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[...] Offstumped wrote an interesting post today on Destination 300 – maybe with some help from destiny’s daughtersHere’s a quick excerpt … daughter, Mayawati can indeed become the central pole of Left of Center Social Justice politics in the decade to come laying what is left of the Congress by the w ayside….Her win in the recent Uttar Pradesh election has shown us that the scenario that best suits the BSP is one in which it is no longer at the mercy of coalition politics….Something unheard of happened down south in the hotbed of Dravidian politics…. [...]
[...] Offstumped wrote an interesting post today on Destination 300 – maybe with some help from destiny’s daughtersHere’s a quick excerpt … f the BJP’s 19-member central election management committee . … The BJP has identified 297 parliamentary seats for special attention in the next general election….A weakened SP would lock Mayawati’s hold on Uttar Pradesh come Lok Sabha elections. It would also do something more …….Her win in the recent Uttar Pradesh election has shown us that the scenario that best suits the BSP is one in which it is no longer at the mercy of coalition politics…. [...]
Yossarin, Mayawati is always an interesting topic. For now, I think she is going to prop up a BJP or Congress-led government with the fresh kitty of MP’s she has in 2009. I can not see her letting another regional stalwart take that throne. In fact, since the demised JP and JD, she is the only other regional party to establish a reasonable presence in every state.
The Congress, lost, dazed and confused, should be losing sleep over numbers she is likely to boost from 2003: Madhya Pradesh (A 10.61% vote-share in 157 seats), Rajasthan (A 6.4% vote-share in 124 seats), Delhi (9% in 40 seats, although this increased in the MCD elections) and Chhattisgarh (7% in 54 seats). She is starting to move into seat-winning figures in these states.
Indira Gandhi? sworn in in 1966. led the Congress shakily thru the 1967 elections (the last orderly General Election in India). Returned triumphant in 1971. Humbled in 1977 – coalition already gone. Returned in 1979. Effectively about 10 years followed by one last election that favoured Rajiv Gandhi, and that’s it. So are you saying this is all Mayavati is going to achieve? I am sure she is thinking way beyond that. Although she is already 52 – OK a little older than IG was in 1967 (50). Unlike IG Mayavati has no legacy. What’s going to happen to her party after she retires? She has kept her family out of politics, and all her deputies are mere flunkies. Well she could rule India for a very long time – maybe assume power in 2009 at 54 and continue till 2039.
The turn out at Thuglak meeting is not new. Every year for the last 38 years is the same case on Jan 14th which is Thuglak’s annual day. The crowd is for Cho, and his sharp political comments. Modi or No Modi, Cho rocks.
Request you to do a comparative analysis of Modi and Mayawati, in relation to and not limiting to, their background, growth, policies, public perception, work done, future prospects et al.
Bhanu – the modi mayawati parallel is interesting for both have emerged from the grass roots and both are being touted to play a larger role beyond the states they rule. But perhaps that is where the parallel ends. Mayawati clearly wants to inherit the erstwhile congress brand of Social Justice politics with all its attendant sycophancy. Modi is innovating on a new brand that we havent seen so far in India, Gujarat was the first instance. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the days to come.
TJ – more than the crowd it was the openness to hear a non-Dravidian politician that appeared to me as interesting. Too early to say if it was mere novelty or a sign of changing times in dravidian politics.
Kaangeya –
thanks for the factual rundown. Was merely alluding to the macro model of the congress in the pre-mandal/mandir era. Whether Mayawati achieves more or less hard to tell, will depend on her ability to attract and wean away the traditional congress vote base one state at a time. I think she is aware that she will have to build up the next tier of leadership otherwise she would not play the gambit of trifurcation while openly nurturing Prime Ministerial ambitions. After all alternate power centers have been the bane of every regional party and the most imaginative solutions so far have been to get wives and sons to don the mantle at the state level. I think she is prepared to promote other leaders. If her long term ambitions have to be served she has no option but to build that layer up. If she is succesful in doing it she can be a formidable alternative to the Congress.
Janpar – Agree she will be indispensable if the Congress wants another shot at power but it is like self-cannibalization. The more the Congress depends on her the more it will concede to her and in turn she will exploit those concessions to grow at the Congress’ expense. The Congress has no way out of the suicidal spiral if Mayawati gets a lions share of UP’s Lok Sabha seats.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2008/01/destination-300-maybe-with-some-help.html
Both Modi and Maya are relatively unknown quantities in national level politics.
But Maya’s well planned effort to breakup and disperse the Samajwadi pharty is a great help to the nation (IMVVHO, of course). Next to the Gowdas, the SP top netas embody the worst traits in non-commie India. Laloo is a a close third.
I would like to know MAya’s attitude and approach to issues such as law and order (without which economic development cannot happen) and terrorism. So far, her handling of the UP blasts cases, her allowing the Tabhleegi Jamaat mega-convention in Azagarh etc aren’t comforting signs.
May will certainly return to cannibalize not just kangressi but bhajpa votes too (as she’s already done in UP). Fighting a maya like opponent electorally is a daunting task. The kangress can be beaten and a dozen different instances have shown how. But Maya is yet to be faced with defeat and irrelevance in any state she’s shown presence in, so far.
Just my dui taka.
Sud – Maya’s cannibalizing BJP votes could be a UP phenomenon where social justice politics runs deep. In other states Maya’s appeal to the BJP voter could be limited. Time will tell.
I fail to see how maya’s increasing power base would help the BJP.
Didnt maya go with Kangress in the election of the embarassment we call president now ?
what’s to say she will side with the BJP even if she does demolish kangress in UP ? AND can BJP form a central govt without doing well in UP and without maya support ? If she did support the BJP, wouldnt it be a case of the tail wagging the dog and another static, non-functioning govt ?
isnt she ideogically closer to the Left, RJD ? third front ?
wasnt kangress already history in UP, it’s really SP and BJP she has killed off in UP ?
what exactly are her credentials besides winning elections ? Even lalu has won elections consecutively in the ‘cow belt’. YAY, we have a bigger, badder, female LALU, YIKES ! =(
the most important question, and the most obvious one, when do we sort out the individual ambitions of petty/idiotic politicians so that we can start the race to catch up with CHINA ?
Where’s a MODI when u need one =)
Aryan
(1) Mayawati is ideologically close only to POWER…she has no relationships with the Left, which up until she finally won in UP, poo-poo’d her for her tie-up’s with the BJP in the past. She gave her support to Pratibha Patil in exchange for a mammoth economic package to UP from the Centre. Ultimately, she is going to build her base outside UP with Congress votebanks. She got what she wanted from the Centre, now she will fight them. If the numbers are in the BJP’s favor next time, why would she support them? Because the BJP still has a base in UP, and if she is giving them support, they can not fight her in UP. On the other hand, if she comes off with enough MP’s and the Left/Congress/Allies are battered enough, she may demand the khursi for herself – scary thought, isn’t it?
(2) Yes, she is a bigger, badder female Lalu. You won’t hear me denying it. Only thing is, she has managed to build notable presence outside the state, so her emerging as a national player can’t be ignored.
[...] who has Prime Ministerial ambitions and is actively looking beyond Uttar Pradesh has upped the ante here. She has now set a new bar in the race to dole out entitlements. Until [...]
Why cannot BJP support Mayawathi for primenistership?
I seriuosly doubt if she can play this cameo in other states in india, just bcause the upper caste and dalit demographics in other states are so different. For the south she will just remain a hindi heartland party. In fact I have a hunch that the UP voters are already disgruntled with her and she might will end up with a very bad tally in the 2009 lok sabha polls in UP. She has just not translated her victory into anything. all she has been doing is bulding ambedkar parks. When people thought that mayawati winning on her own will make a difference, she has proved them wrong. She remains the same crook she was. Moreover local reports from UP suggest that her social engineering has already begun to break with upper castes feeling they should have stuck with BJP. The problem is this hype about the social engineering she has done, all she has done is electoral engineering. Real social engineering takes place when a dalit wins in a brahmin constituency and a brahmin wins in a dalit constituency. I doubt if she can lift her lok sabha tally even by seat above the current 19 in UP.
[...] as the BJP’s B-Team, Offstumped examines the question of how exactly should the BJP engage Destiny’s Daughter – Mayawati in the run up to the next Lok Sabha [...]