Indian elections
Uttar chaos
The Economist
Aug 28th 2003 | DELHI
Political turmoil in India's
largest state
|
IT WAS never
a love-match and they made an unlikely couple. Mayawati, chief minister
until this week of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is a Dalit, a member
of the group once known as “untouchable” that languishes beneath the caste
system. Yet her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had cohabited for 15 months in
coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu nationalists who
head the central government and derive their core support from middle-class,
higher-caste Hindus. Their divorce on August 25th, bringing the collapse of
the state government, will have repercussions far beyond India's largest
state. |
 |
Miss Mayawati's
only discernible policy has been the promotion of Dalit interests. It is the
source of her political strength, giving her an apparently unbreakable “vote
bank” of nearly a quarter of the state electorate. This has enabled her to ride
out a succession of scandals: a lavish birthday party for which she dipped into
government funds; videos showing her, in effect, soliciting bribes; alleged
corruption in a project—since stopped—to build a shopping mall next to the Taj
Mahal.
The BJP's
failure to stop an investigation into the Taj Mahal projects seems to have led
Miss Mayawati to call the whole thing off. State-level BJP leaders heaved sighs
of relief. The alliance was alienating their own supporters, and was sustained
only in the interests of the national party: the BSP has useful voters in other
states, like neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, and in Delhi.
The BJP
needs to prevent
Miss Mayawati from joining forces with the main national opposition party,
Congress. The BJP hopes to regain control of four Congress-ruled states, in
elections this November. The BSP's
seats may also be crucial in the national coalition arithmetic after next year's
general elections.
So the loss of the
BSP
alliance
is a blow to the BJP. But things could be worse. The likely outcome is a new
coalition government led by the largest single party, Samajwadi, which draws its
support from lower-caste Hindus and Muslims. Congress has lent its support to
this plan. But Miss Mayawati is well-known for holding a grudge and will not be
best pleased.
Prominent Women
