The war over brahmin votes in Uttar Pradesh is intensifying.
The Samajwadi Party has decided to hold conventions in all districts of the state to “awaken brahmins and make them aware of the anti-brahmin policies being pursued by the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party”.
According to Mr Manoj Pandey, state president of the SP’s Brahmin Mahasabha, the Mayawati government has been deliberately sidelining brahmin icons and leaders while it has been promoting dalit icons through various parks and memorials.
“The BSP talks of ‘Sarvjan’ but has it installed even one statue of any brahmin icon? In fact, statues of upper caste icons like Acharya Mahavir Prasad Dwiwedi, Pandit Suryakant Tripathi Nirala and Chandra Shekhar Azad are crying for maintenance and upkeep. This proves that the BSP government wants to take brahmin votes but ignore the community and its icons,” he said. The SP Brahmin Mahasabha will be holding conventions in Sultanpur, Barabanki, Kanpur, Kanpur Dehat — now Ramabai Nagar, Haidergarh, Bahraich, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda and Mirzapur this month and other districts will be covered over the next two months.
The Samajwadi Party obviously wants to cash in on the reported disillusionment of brahmins with the BSP.
“Brahmins close to one particular leader may have benefited in the Mayawati regime but the community, as a whole, has been humiliated and neglected. Even in the bureaucracy, it is only one set of brahmins officers who have got key postings while others languish in the wings. This indicates that the BSP has not been able to shed its anti-upper caste mentality and all this talk of Sarvjan replacing Bahujan is only designed to mislead the people,” says another brahmin MLA of the party.
The BSP, on the other hand, has been going out of its way lately to keep the brahmin community in good humour. Though the party has also been making an all out effort to woo the Thakurs and Vaishyas and expand its vote base, it is taking all care not to irk the brahmins who had helped it form government in UP in 2007.
“No matter how hard the SP tries, it will not be able to make inroads into our brahmin vote base,” says a brahmin minister in the BSP government.
Everyone in the community knows how SP has treated its brahmin leaders like Janeshwar Misra and Rama Shankar Kaushik and no one will be fooled. We are also trying to consolidate our base among brahmins so that there is no erosion,” says a brahmin minister in the BSP government.