Well Begun, Half Done

In the week that followed, she became the cynosure of all eyes. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister not only had UNPA leaders like TDP supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu lining up to meet her, she also drew in the likes of K. Chandrasekhara Rao of the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti, H.D. Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal (Secular) and the erratic Ajit Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal. TRS leader Rao and CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan gushed, describing her as a "potential PM". And "why not," asked Naidu.

The feisty, 52-year-old Mayawati, who led her party to a landslide victory in UP in 2007, was suddenly the rallying force for a variety of regional parties. In Parliament, as political parties drew up their strategies for the confidence vote, the possibility of a Dalit PM appeared to electrify Dalit MPs across the political spectrum, sending a shiver down upper-caste spines. The current Lok Sabha has 79 SC MPs and 41 ST MPs, figures set to increase to 84 and 46 respectively in the next House after delimitation. BJP MPs warned their friends in the TDP that their new friendship with Mayawati would end up with their playing second fiddle to her. BSP Rajya Sabha MP Ambedrajan told Outlook: "The publicity that the BSP got ensured that we get an overwhelming response from states such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana."

With Mayawati in the spotlight, the principal opposition BJP faded off TV screens and vanished from the newspapers. Result: on July 23, when the BSP and its new friends met post-trust vote, the number of parties had swelled to 10—the BSP, the four Left parties, the JD(S), RLD, TDP, Jharkhand Vikas Parishad and the Indian National Lok Dal. The TRS leader had come for breakfast to Mayawati, but left before the meeting—largely because of problems with his own party, not with the BSP. TDP sources said the party was hoping for a Left-TDP-BSP electoral alliance in Andhra Pradesh. And the INLD, which had earlier seeming to be drifting towards the BJP after the exit of the SP from the UNPA, was now hoping to put together an INLD-BSP association in Haryana. Only the Asom Gana Parishad, a UNPA member, stayed away, as it is in talks with the BJP.

After the meeting, the parties, which currently have close to 90 Lok Sabha MPs, announced a national campaign against price rise, agrarian distress, the India-US nuclear deal, communal forces, and the "gross misuse" of government institutions like the CBI. But clearly, this gathering was yet to take the shape of a front. On whether these 10 parties would be a pre-poll alliance, a third alternative or a temporary arrangement, Karat said: "We’ve come together to conduct a campaign; we’ll decide the rest later." BSP sources later told Outlook that there was some nervousness among the other leaders at the dominant role Mayawati was likely to play if the parties indeed gathered formed a front. Quick to sense this, she stuck a conciliatory note, stressing that the leaders of the grouping of 10 parties "were of equal standing".

But whatever the apprehensions of the individual leaders, there is little doubt that Mayawati will have to be accepted as the real leader. She alone, with the Dalits of the country increasingly behind her, can be a rallying force for such a formation. This is Mayawati’s moment in the sun.