Mayawati: Waiting for a chance to hit back

Given her support among Dalits, she can't be written off

It may have been a year of political miscalculations for former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati who has the distinction of becoming the chief minister of the largest state thrice with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But the lady who ruled UP with an "iron fist" appeared to be in an undue haste to realise her political ambitions and got herself pushed into a corner.

As the year began, Mayawati seemed to be consolidating her position by pandering to the BJP's central leadership, but hitting hard at the BJP's interest in the state.

While she invited Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani to share the platform with her mentor Kanshi Ram at a BSP rally in Lucknow, she kept on nibbling at the BJP's upper caste support base.

That the state leadership was reduced to play the second fiddle to the "behanji", as she is fondly called by her supporters, became evident by the manner in which the BJP central leadership forced her most ardent critic Rajnath Singh to keep mum on the UP politics.

Singh was virtually cornered as the gutsy Dalit lady from rural Ghaziabad unleashed the police against feudal lord of Pratapgargh and a minister in the Singh government Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya and his father and former ruler of Kunda Raja Uday Pratap Singh, and booked them under the Prevention of Terrorist Act (Pota).

By keeping Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani happy, Mayawati ran the administration the way she wished.

But she started feeling jittery when the BJP hard-bargained with her for the Lok Sabha elections. Aware of her mercurial temperament, the BJP wanted to clinch a deal to contest 50 Lok Sabha seats, leaving 30 seats to the BSP.

But the BJP leadership was oblivious to the fact that in her third stint as the chief minister, Mayawati had started nursing the ambition of playing a role at the Centre.

But the CBI probe into the Taj corridor project heightened Mayawati's insecurity. Since the CBI was asked to probe into the case by the Supreme Court, there was little the Centre could do to bail out the chief minister whose office was alleged to be involved in the case.

Unable to secure any protection in the case, Mayawati decided to pull a coup against the BJP and recommended dissolution of the Assembly after a Cabinet meeting on August 26.

But she was unaware of the rapport between her bete noire Mulayam Singh Yadav and top BJP leaders. It was a fatal miscalculation on Mayawati's part and she had to resign.

In a tactical move, the BJP installed Yadav as the chief minister with the help of the Congress. Yadav's one of the important task is to marginalise Mayawati in the state.

Mayawati's problems got compounded as Kanshi Ram fell ill and virtually became immobile. Though she has taken over as the BSP chief, she is no match to the political skills of Kanshi Ram.

It was also proved at the Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan Assembly polls, where the BSP became a fringe political force. But she is busy setting her house in order and looking for an option for the alliance.

Given the BSP's wider support base among Dalits and Muslims, in some pockets, it will not be possible to write her off in the next Lok Sabha polls.