After making its presence felt in urban areas, the Bahujan Samaj Party is returning to the rural interiors to consolidate its vote base amongst its traditional voters.
According to party sources, the BSP leadership is concerned about the erosion in its dalit vote base and wants to assuage their feelings before the next Assembly elections in the state.
The BSP, in the past five years, had concentrated on bringing upper castes into the party fold and had converted its ideology from “Bahujan” to “Sarvjan”. This, according to sources, has not gone down well with the party’s dalit voters who feel that dilution of ideology and priority amounts to betrayal of sorts.
“We need to reach out into the rural interiors and make our voters understand that the party still remains committed to its mission and there has been no dilution of ideology as such. Most of our rallies and demonstrations, in the past three years, have been held in urban areas but now we will be holding meetings in the rural areas to inform the people about the achievements of the Mayawati government and also apprise them of the schemes launched for their welfare,” said a party functionary.
That the BSP government will now be shifting focus to the rural areas is also evident from the fact that the chief minister has directed officials to complete all developmental works in villages on a priority basis. She has set a deadline of one year for the same.
According to party sources, senior BSP leaders will soon be fanning out into the villages for interactions with the local people, particularly dalits.
“They will listen to complaints, inform the people of the projects initiated by the Mayawati government and also dispel doubts, if any. The leaders will distribute booklets highlighting the work done by the BSP government in the past three years,” the party functionary said.
These leaders will also make a conscious effort to counter the Congress campaign and nullify the initiative started by Mr Rahul Gandhi to reach out to dalits.
“We will definitely tell the people about the anti-dalit mentality of the Congress and its leaders and explain to them how opposition parties are trying to mislead them by spreading canards about the BSP,” the party leader added.
For this, the BSP will depend solely on its cadres who are familiar with the BSP “mission” and not on “outsiders” who have joined the party in recent years.