“Their own leaders are making allegations, counter-allegations against each other. Moreover, the government and the organisation are running in two different directions. They (SP) have made our job easy. A weak SP will make the fight straight with the BJP and we will make our plans accordingly,” said a senior BSP leader.
He said that his party was optimistic about its poll prospects even earlier too, primarily in the wake of anti-incumbency in Uttar Pradesh. “But the recent incidents of family fight, which came out in the open, have put a question mark on the party, especially among the minority voters. In the last Lok Sabha elections, there was a division in minority votes between the SP and BSP, which helped the BJP. But we are hopeful that these votes will shift en bloc towards BSP,” he said.
BSP, sources indicated, may give party tickets to a large number of minority candidates so that the minority community gravitates towards the party in a big way. This, coupled with Dalit votes, which is more or less intact with Mayawati, can provide a strong voter base in favour of the BSP.
There are about 19% voters from the minority community in UP, while 22-23% are from the Scheduled Castes. Thus, the two segments together constitute more than 40%. Besides the Dalit-Muslim consolidation plank, the party is also working to woo the upper caste Brahmin community, for which senior leader Satish Chandra Mishra has been deployed. The BSP leader said, following the fresh developments in SP, his party expects an increase in its vote percentage and also the number of seats. “As it is, people were fed up with the Akhilesh Yadav government. Now with the internal fight, there is strong disenchantment with this dispensation. We offer the best alternative option in UP. We hope we will be able to communicate this to the people of UP,” he said.
That the fight would be between BSP and BJP was echoed by Union Minister of State and Republican Party of India (RPI) chief Ramdas Athawale: BSP would be the main opponent of the NDA in the Assembly elections if the SP war continues. “Our main opponent is SP; if the family feud persists and is not solved, our main opponent will be BSP,” Athawale told reporters this week.