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After facing a rout in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Monday hit the streets in Uttar Pradesh to highlight the 'failures' of the Akhilesh Yadav government in the state and the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.
The BSP organised demonstrations at all the 75 district headquarters in UP on issues related to farmers and the poor. This is with an eye on the 2017 Assembly polls and to regain the party's lost political ground.
Mayawati, however, was missing from action as she is in Delhi for the ongoing Parliament session. On May 2, the party is slated to hold similar protests across India.
In its demonstrations, the party distributed pamphlets giving details about the various government schemes allegedly favouring capitalists and industrialists at the cost of the poor and the farmers.
The recent unseasonal rains and hailstorms, which reportedly caused suicides by distressed farmers, have given a powerful ammunition in the hands of the BSP to reorganise its cadre and attack the governments of the day.
The stiff resistance to the Land Acquisition Bill, which has been portrayed as anti-farmer by the Opposition parties, has also been grabbed by the party to hit out at Modi.
The BSP is harping on the farmers' issues to connect to its core constituency comprising dalits, marginal farmers, share croppers etc in the backdrop of the farmers' suicides and massive crop loss.
Meanwhile, Mayawati spoke in the Rajya Sabha on the earthquake disaster in Nepal and the losses reported in India. She also addressed media persons outside Parliament.
Although UP polls are two years away, the BSP has kicked of the process to organise the cadres, boost their sagging morale and capitalise on the anti-incumbency of both Central and state governments.
Mayawati purportedly wants to fuel her campaign with the burning issues of today - un-seasonal rains and hailstorms, farmers' suicide, land acquisition Bill, deterioration of law and order situation in UP, etc.
Besides, the unification of the socialist outfits under Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch and her arch rival Mulayam Singh Yadav has put another equation to the already fragmented electorate profile in UP.
Over the years, BSP's core constituency of dalits, Brahmins and a section of Muslims has eroded and shifted to either the SP or the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Mayawati is now re-energising her party, since her opponents are out to woo the dalits by espousing the cause of dalit pantheons, including Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.
