Not just bluster: Unfazed Mayawati actually thinks the BJP has handed her a chance to play victim

The no-holds-barred race between political parties for next year’s crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly elections has got even uglier with the Central Enforcement Directorate choosing to suddenly leak to the media that it had detected cash deposits totalling over Rs 104 crore in an account belonging to the Bahujan Samaj Party and Rs 1.43 crore in an account belonging to party chief Mayawati’s businessman brother Anand Kumar in a branch of United Bank of India in New Delhi.

The Enforcement Directorate officers were quoted as saying that they were investigating whether deposits made after the November 8 demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes had violated the law. While a sum of Rs 18.98 lakh came into Anand Kumar’s account using the old notes after the ban, about Rs 15 crore-Rs 17 crore was deposited every other day in the BSP account, the officers were quoted as saying. Rs 102 crore was reported to have been deposited in Rs 1,000 notes, and the balance in old Rs 500 notes.

Vendetta politics

Barely 12 hours after the news leak, Mayawati hit back with all guns blazing at a press conference in Lucknow on Tuesday. After asserting that deposits in both the accounts were perfectly legal, she went on to lambast Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party for deliberately targeting her party and relatives out of fear and prejudice.

The BSP leader listed several reasons why the BJP government was after her. She said that the BJP was desperate to come to power in Uttar Pradesh but was afraid that the BSP stood in its way and was poised to win the assembly polls. “Mayawati holds the master key to the UP election and the BJP is shaken,” she declared.

Mayawati also said that the prime minister was angry with her because it was she who first warned people of the dangers and ill-effects of the demonetisation and this had spurred other political parties too to oppose the move. Not surprisingly, the Dalit leader stressed her oft-repeated complaint of the anti-Dalit bias of her opponents. “They don’t like that a Dalit daughter will rule the country’s largest state and work for the upliftment of the poor, oppressed and middle class people who constitute 90% of the country’s population,” she said.

The BSP chief mocked the formidable BJP president Amit Shah for trying to malign her name with corruption charges against her relatives and party. “Our growing base has made the BJP nervous so much so that its president Amit Shah is making childish remarks on Uttar Pradesh’s law and order situation and not taking any action,” she said.

People will see through this vindictive and vendetta politics, Mayawati claimed, and expressed confidence that these allegations are likely to help rather than harm her party’s interests, just as they did in the 2007 assembly polls when she had swept to a spectacular win.

“I remember it was a BJP government at the centre which started the Taj Corridor case against me in 2003 and I had to suffer far worse harassment in the years leading to the 2007 polls,” Mayawati said. “But ultimately the BJP ended up with gifting me an absolute majority. I think they are about to do me a favour again.”

Mayawati also took the opportunity to issue an open challenge to the prime minister, asking him to reveal all the bank deposits and purchases made by his party before and after November 8, so that similar investigations can be launched against them.

Familiar territory

While some of Mayawati’s rhetorical fire at her press conference in Lucknow may be sheer bluster, it is unlikely that the Enforcement Directorate’s investigations into the accounts of her party or relatives will succeed in surprising or intimidating her.

Knowing the desperation of the BJP to come to power in Uttar Pradesh, she is believed to have been prepared for some time now for harassment from central agencies. Significantly, the same day the Enforcement Directorate leaked the news about the investigation into her brother Anand Kumar’s bank deposits after demonetisation, the Income Tax authorities also indicated that they had launched a probe into his alleged connection with benami properties, or those kept in others’ names.

Significantly, Mayawati at her press conference said that she was expecting the central government to start more investigations into influential leaders of her party to dent its prospects in the coming polls.

Corruption charges are familiar territory for Mayawati throughout her remarkable, though controversial, career over the past decades. She has both won and lost under their shadow and neither her core Dalit base nor the groups she has forged electoral alliances with – the Brahmins in 2007 and the Muslims for the current round of assembly polls – have been much bothered about whether the BSP leader was scrupulously honest or not.

So although she will be no doubt be watchful about the next move by New Delhi against her party and family, Mayawati will be aware that they may lack credibility at a time when many other Opposition parties are accusing the government of political vendetta and targeting the prime minister himself with corruption charges. The BSP leader has reasons to believe that the internal contradictions of the Samajwadi Party or the growing public anger against the pains of demonetisation may play a larger role in determining the outcome of the Uttar Pradesh polls.

Indeed, at her press conference, Mayawati could not resist taunting the BJP’s electoral woes in Uttar Pradesh over demonetisation. “I pray to God that they take a couple of more decisions like demonetisation and make it easier for us to form the government,” she said with a smile. “I won’t even have to go to all the districts for poll campaigning. I will win sitting at home.”