Arrogant or Fearless?

One might argue that the year 2007 belonged to two people: Narendrabhai Modi and Mayawati. In some respects the latter managed to overturn the paradigm in Indian politics that the people of Uttar Pradesh must throw up a hung assembly. Ever since Mayawati seemingly achieved the impossible, she has been followed everywhere by a thousand eyes; even her rallies in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat received considerable media attention, while political analysts across the country spent hours poring over details of the BSP's voteshare in different constituencies; considering various arithmetical possibilities. And Mayawati has been more than happy to keep everyone guessing. The Oracle examines the ambitions and abilities of this prolific politician.

1) So does Mayawati have complete control over UP? For the time being, yes. The people of Uttar Pradesh, who for sometime now, had been exasperated with constant political upheaval in Lucknow, finally have a government that will stay firmly in saddle for five years. This plank of stability, in itself, confers upon Mayawati, an enormous credibility that might serve her well as far as the next Assembly election in the state. The people of Uttar Pradesh will not want to buy into a ``three party system'' again. Given that national politics is played out with such intensity in this key state, unless the Samajwadi Party manages to shed its wholly regional profile, it will end up on the losing side. At the moment it is difficult for the SP to mend fences with the Congress, while a BJP-SP alliance is far too implausible.

2) Will Mayawati's style let her down? Not necessarily.... Sometime in the 1990's Laloo Yadav summoned the high and mighty of Patna's bureaucracy to the the veterinary college grounds and humiliated them in full public view... and he went on to script an incredible success story spanning one and a half decades. Similarly, Mayawati's "arrogance", which translates into her callous handling of public officials, will not put off ordinary people, who see these corrupt stool pigeons as tyrants anyway. But political vendetta is in a different league altogether and Maya would do well to approach her opponents with caution. Jayalalitha had walked down a similar path some years ago and she has lived to regret it. As such, her ways of letting the police lose on Samajwadi and BJP supporters and leaders does not work to her advantage.

3) So, is BSP the next BJP? In other words, can the BSP with its strong lower caste appeal, along with its strange new message of a Brahmin-Dalit alliance, stage a rerun of the BJP's rise to nationwide eminence roughly two decades ago? Most certainly, not! The plot behind the BJP's march to power had been categorically laid out by the formidable organization of the RSS, which was built over four decades. In doing so, the RSS produced a clutch of powerful leaders each of them capable of disciplined political strategy. This is roughly the opposite of the BSP, in which all the power is concentrated at the top, in the person of the "Supreme Leader", who systematically scours her party ranks for potentially promising people and crushes their spirit.

4) What about breaking up Uttar Pradesh into smaller states? On her 52nd birthday, a beaming Mayawati told reporters that she had "always" favoured the creation of smaller states and that UP was still "too big" even after the creation of Uttarakhand. To my knowledge, this is the first time a ruling party wants a state to be divided: one of Chandrababu's many undoings was his vociferous opposition to the creation of a separate Telangana, while Laloo Yadav famously said that Jharkhand would be created over "his dead body". And yet, Mayawati wants the great prize state of Uttar Pradesh carved up and divided. This is yet another example of just how much confidence the BSP has accumulated over the past one year. While Mayawati's party is strong in every part of the state, the Samajwadi has been pushed into Muslim pockets and the BJP has been boxed into urban areas. Or perhaps, Mayawati feels that she can increase her national profile by ruling as many as three states instead of one! More states mean more elections and as her mentor Kanshi Ram used to say : "We like elections. We want more elections; We fight the first election to lose, the second to play king maker and the third to win". However, it is extremely unlikely that these smaller states, if created, will remain in the BSP's kitty in the long run. It is entirely possible that the BJP and the Congress, which are presently confounded by the enormity of the task of rebuilding themselves in this vast state, will find themselves on surer ground and the politics of these smaller states could turn bipolar. A much more sorry scenario, however, is that scumbags like Ajit Singh and Sonelal Patel will get a shot in the arm .

5) Can Mayawati become Prime Minister in 2009? Despite the media frenzy surrounding her, Mayawati remains, for the most part, a regional leader. And she definitely does not have a national party backing her, something Narendra Modi will have access to, should he set his sights beyond Ahmedabad. The United Front experiment is an idea whose time has passed and its ghost, the UNPA can at best be a support network for erstwhile Chief Ministers recovering from the trauma of losing the limelight, a shoulder to cry on. On the other hand, the Congress has sworn never to support any other party at the Centre again and it is therefore unlikely that they would offer Mayawati the PM's chair just to keep the NDA out. The same goes for the BJP led NDA. In fact, the electorate in 2009 will want to have a stable government at the Centre and therefore people coalition hoppers like Mayawati might not get all the votes they think they will.

The truth of Mayawati lies somewhere between Jayalalitha and Narendra Modi, between the desire to create a personality cult and a determination to nurture a social movement. Her power may well have reached a plateau already and much like Sharad Pawar, it may be downhill once she is past this point.