Lok Sabha elections 2019: How Mayawati and Rahul are playing political poker
Like a good poker player, Mayawati is keeping her powder dry.
BSP chief Mayawati is a shrewd politician. Neither her support nor her opposition can be taken for granted. She has a history of making opportunistic U-turns. Her support is based on the principle that has guided her through four chief ministership tenures in Uttar Pradesh: Mayawati First.
Her attack on veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh was calibrated. She was careful to target him and the Congress, but not UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi or party president Rahul Gandhi.
As a recent IndiaToday-Axis pre-poll survey revealed, Jyotiraditya Scindia is the clear favourite among three state Congress leaders as a potential chief minister of Madhya Pradesh with 32 per cent of the respondents supporting him. Kamal Nath trails with eight per cent. Digvijaya brings up the rear with two per cent.
It is therefore expedient for Mayawati to dub him an “RSS agent” without fearing a Congress backlash in the 2019 general election. Mayawati needs allies to regain relevance in the Lok Sabha where she was reduced to zero seats in 2014.
In Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, however, Mayawati knows that tying up with the Congress will cost her. The BSP’s vote is fungible. An alliance at state level makes little sense. Besides, it allows her to keep her options open.
The BSP currently has just four seats in the 230-seat Madhya Pradesh Assembly. In Rajasthan, the party has three seats out of 200. And in Chhattisgarh, the BSP has only one seat in the Assembly’s 90 seats. Tying up with the Congress in these three states would risk losing a significant portion of her transferrable Dalit vote, consigning the BSP to irrelevance.
In the past, Mayawati has opportunistically broken bread with both the Congress and the BJP. In Chhattisgarh, for example, Mayawati’s alliance with Rahul’s bête noire Ajit Jogi will cut into the Congress’ vote share, allowing the BJP to capitalise.
The sword of Damocles in the form of CBI and ED probes continues to hang over Mayawati. At a press conference on October 3, Mayawati angrily denied this: “Digvijaya Singh, who is also a BJP agent, is giving statements that I am under a lot of pressure from the Centre so I don’t want this (Congress) alliance. This is totally false and baseless.”
Towards 2019
Mayawati’s fall from grace has been especially precipitous in Uttar Pradesh. In 2007, the BSP won 206 seats in UP’s 403-seat Assembly. In 2017, it plunged to 19 seats.
The 2019 Lok Sabha election is an entirely different matter. Mayawati will happily cohabit with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh and with the Congress in states where the BSP’s vote share can help defeat the BJP by avoiding triangular fights. That is Rahul’s calculation as well though he, like Mayawati, is holding his 2019 cards close to his chest.
Uttar Pradesh, however, presents a tricky problem for both the BSP and SP. Akhilesh is willing to give Mayawati the 40-plus seats she wants to contest. Once the SP accepts around 30 seats and Ajit Singh’s RLD and other allies get their share, what will be left for the Congress? Crumbs.
Will Rahul be happy with around five seats, including Rae Bareli and Amethi? The short answer: he won’t have a choice. For Mayawati and Akhilesh, the Congress is an unwelcome guest in Uttar Pradesh who must be tolerated in the larger interest of evicting the BJP from power nationally.
By giving way in 2019 to allies in the three make-or-break large states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra, the Congress though may end up cutting its nose to spite its face.
Tejaswi’s RJD will bargain hard with Rahul in Bihar where the BJP-JD(U) alliance, despite its hiccups and the RJD’s resurgence, has a nearly 50 per cent combined vote share, leaving little for the Congress.
In Maharashtra, the Congress-NCP alliance will flounder, if the BJP and the Shiv Sena contest together. Despite the Sena’s unhinged pinpricks against the BJP, it knows two things.
One, the Congress-NCP will never ally with it. And two, if it fights on its own, it will get less than half the 18 Lok Sabha seats it won in 2014.
The Sena fought the Maharashtra Assembly election on its own and was reduced to 63 seats in December 2014, compared to the BJP’s 122 seats. Uddhav Thackeray knows the ground reality in Maharashtra.
Straight fights
Most states in 2019 will feature straight Congress-BJP contests. If the Congress cannot muster 100 Lok Sabha seats – even 80 would be a stretch – its chances of leading a national mahagathbandhan will recede.
The Congress and its UPA constituents, including NCP, Left Front, DMK, NC, JD(S), RJD and others, are likely to win around 130 seats between them. The patchwork “Federal” Front, comprising the TMC, TRS, BJD, BSP, SP, TDP and other non-UPA, non-NDA parties, is unlikely to cross 120 Lok Sabha seats.
With 250 seats between them, the UPA-Federal Front combine will be tantalisingly short of forming a patchwork government in 2019. Who will lead it? Mayawati, Mamata, and a dark horse like KCR will fancy their chances.
The “crab” syndrome though will come into play as they pull each other down while Rahul looks benignly on.
Will all this political grandstanding help the BJP? Not necessarily. The party may have strong booth-level workers, a dedicated cadre and the backing of the RSS’s army of pracharaks. But its chances of hitting 272 seats remain remote. Together with its NDA allies, it will at best muster 260-270 seats, making the 2019 Lok Sabha election too close to call.
The rural-urban divide could be the decisive factor. While farmer distress is real, the BJP’s welfare schemes are beginning to bite. If Ayushman Bharat, direct benefit subsidies and other measures percolate down to rural India, the arithmetic might swing the BJP’s way, pushing it over 272 seats.
Like a good poker player, Mayawati is keeping her powder dry.