Mayawati in reverse gear?

The New Indian Express
First Published : 31 Mar 2010 11:42:00 PM IST
Last Updated : 31 Mar 2010 12:11:16 AM IST

Inscrutable are the ways of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati but there is a method in the way she has, of late, been treating Satish Chandra Mishra, who was at one time considered the second most powerful person in the Bahujan Samaj Party. A lawyer, he came into the good books of Mayawati when he successfully pleaded for her in a defection case. He was soon made a party general secretary in which capacity he organised hundreds of Brahmin sammelans all over the state. Considered the architect of the Dalit-Brahmin-Rajput social engineering, he played a major role in the distribution of tickets in the 1997 Assembly elections — Brahmins and Rajputs got more tickets than the Dalits. It paid dividends when, for the first time, the BSP won an absolute majority in the state and formed a government. And when a State Advisory Council was constituted and Mishra was given its responsibility, he emerged in popular perception as the power behind the Mayawati throne. All this gave the impression that the Bahujan-Brahmin-Kshatriya combination was here to stay and there was no going back to Manuwadi-bashing days. Alas, the results of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections opened Mayawati’s eyes to the gradual erosion in the Dalit support base of the BSP. Muslims, too, were not enamoured of the growing upper caste clout as represented by Mishra.

With that came crashing down Mayawati’s dream of playing the role of a king-maker, if not the queen herself, in national politics. She had difficulty in reconciling herself to the fact that the BSP got only 20 seats, against Congress’ 21. Since then she has been asserting the Dalit character of the government and the party by appointing Dalit officials to key posts and stating unambiguously that her successor would be a Dalit. That Mishra’s usefulness was over was apparent when the SAC stopped functioning. Finally, when he was asked to look after the legal affairs of the party, it signalled the end of what his detractors call ‘Mishra raj’ in the BSP. For all his legal and administrative acumen, he does not have an independent political base in the state to even think of raising a banner of revolt against Mayawati. For the time being, he can only wait for the day when the chief minister realises that the BSP needs upper caste votes to make it a clear winner. Till then Satish Chandra Mishra can only sulk on the sidelines.