ABSTRACT
In the backdrop of the Babri masjid demolition, a year of President’s rule and the November 1993 state elections the victory of the ‘backwards’ SP and the ‘exploited’ BSP highlighted the dominant effect of Mandalization of Indian politics. It forced the BJP to re-orient its electoral strategy to endear itself to non-core voters, a cue also taken by the SP and BSP to strategize the support of ‘plus voters’.
In a coalition with SP Mayawati became the ‘caretaker of Dalit interests.’ As agendas conflicted an acrimonious parting took place between two ambitious leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati. Thereafter, Mayawati outlined BSP’s principles of politics: ‘majboor sarkar’ alliances with the BJP; one, a four-month short-lived ruling coalition in June 1995 and another, a six-month rotational chief ministership with the BJP in March 1996. As Chief Minister on two occasions, Mayawati pursued a Dalit agenda: transferring upper-caste officials, implementing Ambedkar Village Programme and inaugurating prohibitively expensive Dalit Bahujan iconography in a cash-strapped state; distributing land rights to the landless; introducing fast-track courts for speedy disposal of cases related to Dalit atrocities; enforcing Gangster and Goonda Act etc.
