Why Mayawati urgently needs to counter the opposition narrative of being BJP's B team?

New Delhi: After a less-than-impressive showing in the recent Lok Sabha polls, the situation for Bahujan Samaj Party is turning out to be grim. Party chief Mayawati is entrenched in a do-or-die battle to perform or perish from the political landscape of the nation.

The party needs to prove its political relevance on the national scene even as it desperately tries to shake away the perception of being the B-team of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The narrative, that BSP was trying to play second fiddle to the BJP in the recent polls, was set up successfully by the Samajwadi Party and Congress alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls which caused irreparable loss to the Mayawati-led party. The BSP was unable to shake off the perception, leading to massive desertion from her core constituency of voters, which caused one of the worst-ever defeats for the party in any general election. The party wasn’t able to secure even a single seat from UP in the 2024 polls, while it had won 10 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

With Legislative Assembly polls scheduled to take place in the important states of Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the BSP chief may still have an opportunity to redeem herself politically.

BSP chief knows it will be very important for her party’s survival and to keep its political relevance to ensure that BSP does well in these polls, sources said.

The BSP chief has already shown intent to improve the party’s situation by going in for new alliances for the forthcoming polls.

The BSP has recently allied with the Indian National Lok Dal for the Haryana Legislative Assembly polls.

Out of 90 Assembly seats in the state, the BSP will contest 37 seats while leaving the rest for its partner.

The alliance could prove to be a formidable one as it aims to garner the crucial Jat and Scheduled caste communities in the state.

It is understood that the party is also expected to soon announce similar electoral alliances for Maharashtra and Jharkhand as well.

Akash Anand removal fiasco

The BSP’s worst-ever show in Lok Sabha is being blamed on many issues, chief amongst them being the unceremonious removal of senior party leader and Mayawati’s nephew, Akash Anand.

It is believed that the removal of Akash, who had been handling the party's political affairs for several months, sent out a negative message amongst the core cadres and voters of the party, who apparently chose to vote for the Congress-SP alliance.

The vehement raising of allegations that the BJP wanted to remove reservations for the SC and ST communities if it secured power for the third time at the Centre, which was being fanned by the Congress-SP alliance, also worked against the BSP.

The Mayawati-led party was unable to convince its core base that it would not let any rollback of the reservation process happen, hence its routing in the polls.

These issues did irreparable damage to the BSP, which the party chief now wants to counter urgently.

Mayawati needs to keep in mind that after a strong show in recent general elections, the Congress-SP alliance is confidently preparing for the next Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls and forthcoming state legislature polls in other states.

The only way for the BSP to remain relevant in the opposition space will be to allocate more power to young leaders like Akash Anand and also for Mayawati to lead from the front at the national level and secure her political relevance.