What Mayawati’s Lucknow speech can tell us about the impact of Rahul Gandhi’s Kisan Yatra in UP

If there is a single message that emanates from Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati’s speech at a rally in Lucknow on Sunday, it is this: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s Kisan Yatra in Uttar Pradesh, which concluded on Thursday, has rattled her.

The grand old party figured only casually in previous speeches that Mayawati delivered at rallies in Agra (August 21), Azamgarh (August 28), Allahabad (September 3) and Saharanpur (September 11). In those rallies, the Samajwadi Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, and what the Dalit leader refers to as “a nexus” between the two, constituted the main target of her attack.

But on Sunday, Mayawati returned to the Congress again and again in her hour-long speech, betraying a sense of unease caused apparently by Gandhi’s attempts to win over farmers, Muslims and upper castes in the politically crucial state that goes to the polls early next year.

Referring to Gandhi’s Deoria-to-Delhi yatra, Mayawati said: “People will not accept the Congress even if its top leader resorts to any drama or goes about promising that power bills will be halved once its government comes to power.”

The Bahujan Samaj Party chief also criticised the Congress vice president for misleading the farming community by asserting that the previous Congress-led government at Centre had waived farmers’ loans worth Rs 70,000 crore.

“That loan waiver had benefitted only the affluent farmers who live in AC rooms,” she said, “while small and medium farmers were left empty-handed.”

Taking on BJP

Mayawati’s attack on the Congress comes at a time there has been fervent speculation regarding the extent to which Gandhi has succeeded in altering the political narrative through his month-long journey that took him to 48 districts and 141 of the state’s 404 Assembly seats.

It is equally significant that despite her relentless efforts to rip apart Gandhi’s renewed bid to enter into the mind space of voters in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati appeared conscious of not letting the Bharatiya Janata Party gain from the nationalist narrative it has created following the surgical strikes across the Line of Control in Kashmir. On this issue, she was on the side of the Congress vice president.

Accordingly, Mayawati called out what she referred to as the “natakbazi” (drama) of the BJP-led government at the Centre, which Gandhi had called “dalali”.

She said: “Natakbazi on surgical strikes by the BJP is to divert attention of people from its failure to perform on the promises made by it during the run up to 2014 elections.”

Accusing the BJP of trying to create “war hysteria”, she added: “Instead of honouring its political leaders after the strikes, the BJP should have felicitated the Army. The credit for the strikes should go to the Indian Army and not Narendra Modi.”

Wooing Muslims

The prominence Mayawati gave to the Congress in her speech was visible even when she advised Muslims to join hands with Dalits, her core voters, in order to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power in the state.

The Muslim-Yadav combination has ensured the Samajwadi Party has remained a formidable power in Uttar Pradesh politics for two-and-a-half decades. It is widely believed that it will be critical for the Bahujan Samaj Party to consolidate Muslims and Dalits in the upcoming polls.

In her speech, Mayawati appeared confident of extricating Muslims away from the Samajwadi Party, but could not hide her anxiety that the Congress might just be a hurdle in her efforts to do so.

Attempting to create a split in the Muslim-Yadav combination, the Dalit leader said: “There is a tussle for supremacy going on in the SP [Samajwadi Party] between Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son Akhilesh Yadav and brother Shivpal Singh Yadav and its result will be that the Yadav vote will split as each will try to ensure the defeat of candidates owing allegiance to the other.”

She added: “In such circumstances, Muslims should not waste their ballot by voting for them [Samajwadi Party] or else it will help the BJP,” she said.

As if not confident of being the natural beneficiary of a split in the Muslim-Yadav combination, Mayawati went on to explain to the minority community that they would waste their vote if they opted for Congress candidates.

“Congress does not have a vote base, and voting for it will also benefit the BJP,” she said, adding that her party was the only one that could keep the saffron outfit out of power in the state.

This is perhaps the first time in the last two decades that the Congress appears to be at the centre of Mayawati’s attention. It is not yet certain whether this has happened because of the buzz that Gandhi has succeeded in creating during his Kisan Yatra or if the Congress has actually gained ground in Uttar Pradesh in the last few weeks. Whatever the case may be, it is recognition that the Congress vice president’s month-long road-shows have made an impact in the state.