After wooing Brahmins, OBCs and dalits, the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party is Uttar Pradesh will extend its hand to Muslims, Thakurs and Vaishyas at a rally in the state capital on Sunday. The rally is part of the party’s strategy to consolidate its sarvjan (all castes) formula that had catapulted it to power in 2007. The BSP will be focusing on three vote banks that are believed to have shifted to other parties in recent months.
Muslims, for instance, are being relentlessly wooed by the Congress that has promised reservation for Muslim backward castes from within the OBC quota. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi who is hotfooting through the state has already got the centre to announce a special package for weavers — most of who belong to the Muslim community.
The SP, too, is working overtime to retain its hold on the Muslim vote bank.
UP chief minister Mayawati, through the rally, wants to convey to Muslims that in her regime the community has been completely secure and will list all that her government has done or the community.
The BSP rally will also clarify to the Thakur community that it is not against the community per se and the chief minister has initiated action against Thakur only if they have indulged in criminal activities.
The Thakur community, interestingly, is upset with the BSP for having arrested two of its leaders, MP Dhananjay Singh and former MLA, Jitendra Singh Babloo in connection with old cases after they fell out of Ms Mayawati’s good books. The Congress, through Digvijay Singh, and the BJP, through Rajnath Singh, have been silently wooing the Thakur voters in UP.
Ms Mayawati plans to wean back Vaishyas who are now in the process of returning to their traditional base in the BJP. Trader leaders like Banwari Lal Kanchhal, Sandeep Bansal, Neeraj Bora and Sudhir Halwasiya who joined the BSP have been thrown out on ambiguous charges. Different sections of traders have been physically pushed back by the cops whenever they raised the banner of protest.
Meanwhile, the rally promises to be the BSP’s biggest show of strength in recent months — one that is designed to “upset” political rivals on poll eve.
The party has booked 16 special trains for the Sunday event — eight from booked from Northern Railway, five from North-Eastern Railway and three from North-Central Railway. Trains will be bringing participants from Saharanpur, Azamgarh, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Moradabad, Chandpur (Bijnore), Muzaffarnagar, Delhi Safdarjang, Agra Cantt, Tundla, Lalitpur, Barha Bazaar, Mau and Gorakhpur.