Mayawati will have the crown or nothing

It’s the crown or nothing. That’s the strategy Dalit diva Mayawati is working on.

Sources say she got a call from Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday. The BJP would also try and woo her. But the hard-headed BSP supremo seems to have decided not to support the NDA or the UPA.

BSP sources say Mayawati is in constant touch with Left leaders, especially CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat. The latter’s statement on Thursday, ruling out any support to the Congress, points to a common strategy with the BSP.

Mayawati has been huddled in strategy sessions with her trusted lieutenants since Thursday morning. An official in her secretariat told DNA: “She has kept herself away from official work, and her official engagement note circulated to us for Friday reads ‘arakshit’ (reserved) which means she would be involved in political meetings.”
That routine is not going to change soon. Her work as CM is likely to suffer till the time a government is formed at the Centre. She would be moving to Delhi as soon as the results are out on Saturday.

In the capital, she is going to keep busy with a dinner she has thrown for the third front allies on Monday (May 18), the day after the Left partners meet there. Interestingly, AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa is not on the invitees’ list - not yet at least.

“That is perhaps because Behnji knows that Jayalalithaa would join one of the alliances (UPA or NDA) to be part of the new government. She does not seem to share Behnji’s resolve not to support either of them,” ventured a senior BSP leader.

Mayawati is banking on two things — the unity within the Third Front and her expectation that the BSP would have the largest tally after the BJP and the Congress. Party insiders say Behnji’s strategy is based on her belief that the BSP would get an all-India tally of 50, which includes 40 MPs from UP.

“This has been a dream election for us,” said a BSP insider. “It was a four-cornered contest like the 2007 assembly election. Then too, the Samajwadi Party and Congress were fighting each other and that helped us. The BSP is the only party whose votebank remains intact and multi-cornered contests benefit us,” he said. He also pointed out that the BSP’s votebank in UP has gone up with every election.

About Mayawati’s dream of becoming PM, another party leader says: “You know how Behnji is. She is very clear about what she wants and once she sets a target, nothing can change her mind... she doesn’t compromise.”

Nowadays, a question put to a BSP worker about Mayawati becoming PM is likely to beget a question: “Why can’t a ‘Dalit ki beti’ (a Dalit girl) become PM?” Whatever happens, Behnji has truly fired their imagination.