Mayawati announces BSP's Brahmin outreach ahead of UP polls; seeks to emulate 2007 success

In a key development ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, Mayawati announced that BSP will launch a campaign to connect with the Brahmin community. Addressing the media on Sunday, the BSP supremo contended that Brahmins were very unhappy with the Yogi Adityanath-led government despite overwhelmingly voting for BJP in the previous Assembly election. While acknowledging that her party's seats had nosedived in 2017, the former CM highlighted that BSP retained its vote share.

Extending an olive branch to Brahmins, she opined that they were taken in by the saffron party's promises, unlike the Dalit community which stood by BSP. At the same time, Mayawati exuded confidence that they will duck the trend in the upcoming election by not voting for BJP. As per reports, the party will hold a 'Brahmin Sammelan' in Ayodhya on July 23. 

Notably, her social engineering had propelled BSP to power in 2007 with the party winning 206 out of 403 seats in the state Assembly. For instance, she allocated nearly 139 seats to the upper caste candidates out of 86 were Brahmins. It is perceived that BSP General Secretary SC Mishra played a key role in bringing Brahmins close to the party as he organized a series of rallies projecting BSP's poll symbol 'elephant' as Lord Ganesh. 

PM Modi backs CM ahead of polls

In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, BJP won a whopping 312 seats in the 403-member House, whereas BSP could win only 19 seats. On the other hand, the SP-Congress alliance failed to bear fruit as it could win in only 54 constituencies. While this was seen as a mandate for PM Modi as BJP had not declared any CM candidate, Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath was a surprise pick for the post.

Though Adityanath's stature within the saffron party skyrocketed over the years becoming a star campaigner in all elections, he purportedly attracted ire for the handling of the COVID-19 situation during the second wave. In the last few weeks, BJP leaders have made conflicting statements over Adityanath's future as the Chief Minister. For instance, UP BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh asserted that the polls will be contested under the CM’s leadership citing the end of corruption and hooliganism in the state.

However, UP Minister Swami Prasad Maurya stressed that the state’s next CM will be decided by the BJP’s central leadership after the assembly polls. Similarly, newly appointed UP vice president AK Sharma sparked a buzz by asserting that PM Modi's name was enough to win the election. But, PM Modi lauded UP's governance model during his visit to Varanasi on Thursday. He commended the way in which the state government tackled the second COVID-19 wave despite the fact that UP's size of the population is more than many countries.