Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati
From a school teacher to an IAS officer to becoming the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh four times, Mayawati’s journey has inspired many, especially those in the Dalit community.
But Bahujan Samaj Party leaders have been out of power in UP for a decade, and a better performance in the recently concluded assembly elections will come in handy. Instead, on Thursday evening, the BSP was leading in just one seat.
For the Uttar Pradesh elections, her critics accused Mayawati of “disappearing” from the campaign scene, a charge she repeatedly denied.
Some called her a “low-key” partnership, claiming she was the ruling BJP’s B-team.
A place of praise by senior BJP leader Amit Shah for his “relevance” in the state sparked further speculation of a possible tie-up between the BJP and BSP after the results were declared.
However, the ruling BJP has rebuilt the state on its own.
Leading the party formed by Kanshi Ram in 1984, Mayawati first became the Chief Minister of UP in 1995. But his major breakthrough came in 2007 with the “social engineering” of the BSP, which brought together Brahmins, Dalits and Muslims.
Born in 1956 in Delhi to a low-income family, Mayawati did her graduation from Delhi University’s Kalindi College in 1975 and took up a teacher’s job. But his dream was to become an IAS officer.
After enrolling for the LLB course at Delhi University’s Campus Law Centre, she was preparing for the Civil Services Examination in 1977 when she had a chance encounter with Kanshi Ram, who was then a member of the All India Backward and Minority Community Employees Association. Chief, changed the course of his life. ,
Encouraged by him to join politics, she soon became an integral part of the party formed by Kanshi Ram.
In 1997 and 2002, she became chief minister with outside support from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). For the first time, his government was in power thrice. In 2007, she became the Chief Minister on her own.
Mayawati gained the reputation of being a no-nonsense leader, especially on law and order. He confirmed his reputation in 2007, when his party MP Umakant Yadav, an accused in a land grabbing case, was arrested near his house on his orders. He claims that many high-profile criminals and mafia dons were behind bars during his tenure.
Controversies have affected his career.
His party’s fundraising efforts, his birthday celebrations, naming districts after Dalits, and scathing remarks from rivals for changing the landscape of Lucknow by installing monuments and memorials were noted.
Rivals repeatedly leveled corruption charges against him.
His electoral fortunes turned sour after he was voted out of power in 2012. Things did not change when he joined hands with the rival Samajwadi Party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Yet the 66-year-old leader maintains a grip on her core Dalit base in UP. Even in the recently held elections, his vote share is around 13 per cent.
This time in her absence, during the initial phase of the campaign, when she connected with voters only through her tweets, her close confidant Satish Chandra Mishra stepped in.
Mishra is credited with joining the upper castes for the BSP, helping with the kind of “social engineering” that led him to his big 2007 victory. But this time the effort fell short.
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