ABSTRACT
The chapter traces the decline of BJP in UP even as it formed a government at the centre with alliance partners briefly in 1998 and then for a period of five years after the 1999 national elections. The 2002 state polls led to the emergence of a BSP-BJP ruling coalition contextualised by a fragmenting support base of the BJP. Mayawati embarked upon Dalit empowering programmes in the midst of an acrimonious ideological struggle with the SP. The fall of the BSP government in August 2003 and a better electoral performance by the party in the 2004 state Lok Sabha elections eventually convinced Mayawati to implement a ‘sarvajan’ electoral mobilization model – a ‘fraternizing’ alliance between Brahmins and Dalits along with ‘politicized’ samaj (community) associations among lower backwards and Muslims. Post the 2007 state poll victory, mis-directed ideological model of governance and corruption delegitimized the BSP government. It has left a deep political impact on the party: loss to a ‘developmentalist’ SP in 2012; massive electoral victories of the BJP winning the 2014 and 2019 state Lok Sabha polls; as well as high electoral returns in the state assembly polls of 2017.
