Is Mayawati’s flirtations with brahmans over?

LUCKNOW: BSP chief Mayawati's bonhomie with brahmans seems over. She has decided to return to her core constituents, dalits, after the continuous slide in BSP's electoral fortunes since the 2012 assembly elections.
Mayawati on Wednesday gave Rajya Sabha tickets to two dalits, Bir Singh and Raja Ram, ignoring the claims of party's two brahmans MPs Brijesh Pathak and Akhilesh Das. A miffed Das quit party, while Pathak, usually present during Mayawati's news conferences, was noticeably missing. The party's Brahmin face, Satish Chandra Mishra, kept impassively silent as she announced candidates' names.

Mayawati's rainbow coalition of dalits and brahmans was said to be the reason why she won a virtual landslide in 2007. Thereafter, the formula has failed to yield results and now even the dalits appear to be drifting away from her to the BJP.

Despite setback in 2012 assembly elections, Mayawati gave tickets to 37 brahmans in 2014 Lok Sabha elections but all of them lost as dalits voted in large numbers for the BJP. The party's poor show continued in UP bypolls and the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.

Brahmans are 12% of UP's population and hold sway on 30 Lok Sabha and 90 assembly seats. Until the Mandal and Mandir movements, the community voted mainly for the Congress. brahmans, who have traditionally been on the side of the party in office, went with BSP in 2007 when it gave tickets to 81 brahmans, of whom 37 won. This equation has changed now. SP and BSP perceive a shift in Brahmin loyalty towards the BJP. So the two parties are beginning to ignore brahmans and reverting to their core constituents.