Take BSP supremo Mayawati, for example. Her tosses and turns go by the name ‘Mayajaal’, a sticky web in which the best could come unstuck. The Dalit leader is an unknown quantity. Unlike Kader Khan, whose comic timing and relief were predictable. Mayawati’s predictable unpredictability has to be factored in when dealing with her. She’s unmarked package. There is no way anybody can judge when she will swing, and for what?

It’s like the elephant, the BSP’s election symbol. The towering mammal is ‘steady’ personified for extended periods, and then suddenly it’s in the sugarcane, wreaking havoc! Mayawati has been elephant more than once. Politicians and political parties caught in her ‘Mayajaal’ have survived to tell the tale. That has not prevented others to plunge straight in with a suicidal wish. Behen Mayawati represents a factor in the power-equation that has to be factored in.

Long-time-adversary Mulayam Singh Yadav will be able to explain better. He got singed by Mayawati and in turn singed. Now, Mulayam’s son Akhilesh Yadav is trying not to get burned while inching closer and closer to her. Wisely, Akhilesh is playing second fiddle – ‘Bhatija’ giving respect and deferring to ‘Bua’. Mayawati is amenable because Mayawati wants to become Prime Minister and Akhilesh Yadav does not have a PM-nose!

Rahul of the Gandhi family is on another pedestal, though. The picture of Mayawati cheek-to-cheek with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in Bengaluru held promise, the mahagathbandhan! But the promise of a MGB has not materialized fully after Karnataka. The Bua-Bhatija gathbandhan scored once again in Allahabad nee Prayagraj, and the MGB was nowhere in place in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Neither the Congress nor the BSP could pact agreements.
But post-poll, Mayawati extended support and the Congress formed governments in MP and Rajasthan – the Mayajaal! But Mayawati still stays clear of ‘unity meetings’ and ‘Bhatija’ cannot be seen to go astray. So, poor boy has to suppress the urge to join the ‘other ladka, Rahul’. Now, the Congress is getting a taste of Mayawati’s unpredictability: The BSP has given an ultimatum to Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to release Dalits arrested by the ousted BJP governments for protesting the Supreme Court order on the dilution of the SC/ST Act.

Mayawati could have even lifted the phone and called Sonia or Rahul. She does it the threatening way: announces to the world that if the Congress governments in Rajasthan and MP do not immediately act on her diktat, she will have to rethink support to both state governments. Typical Mayawati. Kader Khan, if he were alive, would affirm Dalit activists in jail must be bothering her, not to the extent to pull back support. This is Mayawati telling Congress ‘you know who’s boss!’

The ultimatum is too harsh to be mild. And the Congress has responded with ‘yes, will do’, i.e., agreed to withdraw cases against the Dalit activists ASAP. It cannot but. The party’s Dalit supporters in MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh will get the wrong message if it doesn’t. Mayawati is playing a long-drawn game at the shortest time available. Intrinsic to her game is ‘Maya for PM’. That message, played loud and clear in less than four months, all the time left for general elections, will consolidate Dalit votes behind her.

Which Dalit will not want a Dalit Prime Minister? You could count them on the fingers if they are politicians, from Ramvilas Paswan to ‘Bhim’ Chandrashekhar. But the great unwashed Dalit will all be rooting and voting for the BSP if Mayawati is named PM-designate. When MK Stalin and Chandrababu Naidu say ‘Rahul for PM’, it brings the elephant out in Mayawati. She cannot stomach it any less than Rahul another term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mayawati has already given indication of what her game-plan for general elections 2019 will be – a MP-Rajasthan-style post-poll mahagathbandhan. But the BJP has the advantage as long as she stays true to her prime ministerial ambition. The Bua-Bhatija gathbandhan will help BJP cut the losses. Keeping alive the ‘Modi versus Rahul’ fight will keep Mayawati riled. There’s no way Mayawati will go for a MGB with the Congress in it, not in Uttar Pradesh. Kader Khan would have agreed if he wasn’t bent on beating 2018 to the finish! (IPA Service)