Thursday meeting between NCP Chief Sharad Pawar’s with BSP Chief Mayawati has created a buzz in Maharashtra about the possibility of an alliance between the NCP in the BSP just ahead of the assembly polls in the state.
When asked about Pawar’s meeting with Mayawati, NCP’s National spokesperson Nawab Malik said:
, “We are trying to get all likeminded people and parties on one platform. It is not just BSP but Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) as well as the left parties in the state are also in talks with us. If we have to build a formidable force in the upcoming elections, we have to take all these forces with us but no decision about any alliance with BSP has been taken yet”.
Just before the counting of the Lok Sabha polls got on the go, there was murmur in Delhi about Sharad Pawar and Mayawati getting in touch with each other to have a discussion on the political equation developing in Delhi.
Sources in the NCP confirmed that Sharad Pawar had telephonic conversation with Mayawati and many other leaders who could possibly be part of the so-called third front. But now Pawar seems to have rehabilitated the contact with Mayawati with an eye on Maharashtra assembly elections, which will happen in four months.
In the year 2009, Mayawati’s BSP’s entered Maharashtra and got very good response. BSP’s spreading out is a new phenomenon that many find interesting.
“Dalit voters in Maharashtra were definitely attracted to Mayawati in the last few elections and she is a bigger icon for them than any of the dalit leaders from the state. We see that as a shift in preferences”, said a Congress leader.
In 2009 Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra, BSP got close to 2% vote in many Lok Sabha constituencies and about 3% in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Now Pawar thinks that he can counter Ramdas Athawale’s Republican Party which has joined the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition and poses a threat to the Congress and NCP in Maharashtra.
By tradition, the dalit vote in the state has stayed with the RPI but in the past few elections, due to split in the party and entry of Mayawati led Bahujan Samaj Party ( BSP) in Maharashtra the dalit vote has got split.
Prakash Ambedkar’s Bharatiya Republican PakshaBahujan Mahasangh is another group which has managed to establish some political presence in the state.
Various exit polls show that an increase was recorded in dalit votes in Maharashtra in 2014 polls.
The dalit community has every time remained with the Congress and its allies however the RPI has started claiming that their coalition with BJP and Shiv Sena has changed that situation in majority of the constituencies.