New threat to Congress

The decision of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), headed by former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, to contest the upcoming Delhi state assembly polls is threatening to upset the calculations of the ruling Congress party.

The Congress party that came to power by winning more than two thirds of the seats in the Delhi assembly when elections were held last in 1998, has refused to offer Mayawati the olive branch in Delhi.

Mayawati's BSP has now decided to contest 50 out of 70 seats for Delhi state assembly, including all 13 seats reserved for the Scheduled (lower) Castes. The party had contested 58 seats in 1998, polling 3.68 per cent votes in its favour. Pre-poll surveys have predicted the BSP may retain its vote share in the national capital even this time.

The Delhi state unit of the Congress party, encouraged by surveys predicting easy victory for it, slammed the door on the the BSP's overtures, unlike in Madhya Pradesh where the two parties have entered into an unannounced understanding.

Claiming they do not need the BSP's support in retaining power, the state unit had pointed out the BSP had forfeited deposits in 57 out of 58 seats it had contested in 1998.

A close scrutiny of the party's performance five years ago is now giving a section of the Congress party leadership the jitters.

While failing to win even a single seat, BSP finished third in multi-cornered contests in an impressive 29 seats.

"It's a fallacy to think that the BSP will not damage the Congress party. Out of 50 seats it intends to contest, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won only on only seven seats.

"That means it will cut into the traditional vote bank of the Congress party in the remaining 43 seats," said journalist P.K. Bhardwaj. The BSP's presence in 1998 helped the BJP win three out of 15 seats by splitting the Dalit vote in east Delhi.

"BSP's stock has only gone up during the past five years. An improved performance in Delhi may thus help the BJP win five to six seats at our cost," confessed a senior functionary of the Delhi Pradesh (state) Congress Committee.

BSP sources on the other hand said that they are still open to an understanding with the Congress party. Mayawati may yet agree to put up weaker candidates in many seats if the Congress party does the same in at least three seats to help the BSP win, the source added.

With friends like these…
* BSP is not the only party threatening the prospects
of a friendly Congress party in Delhi. Bihar's ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) headed by the colourful Laloo Prasad Yadav is planning to put up its candidates in 21 seats this time, eight more than in 1998.

* Two of the RJD's candidates are already making news for different reasons. They have been pitted against the incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit at Gole Market and the BJP's chief ministerial candidate Madan Lal Khurana at Moti Nagar.

* RJD's candidate from Gole Market is Prithvichand Baitha, a dhobhi (washerman)by profession. There are nearly 10,000 voters belonging to the washermen community in this seat.

* Dikshit's main challenger will be Poonam Azad, wife of BJP's MP and former Indian cricket Kirti Azad, whom Dikshit had defeated by a narrow margin in 1998.

* The most interesting among the RJD's candidate, however, is Asha Didi at Moti Nagar. She is an eunuch. RJD's Delhi unit chief Raj Singh Mann said that Yadav will extensively campaign for Asha Didi. Yadav's colourful speech, laced with rustic humour, and Asha Didi's lyrical campaign on beats of drum are bound to worry Khurana.

* A large number of eunuchs have already started coming here to campaign for her.
Among them is Shabnam Mausi who won a seat in the Madhya Pradesh assembly in 1998 and opened floodgates for her tribe to dabble in politics.