I disagree with the contents of this article. This is merely a drawing room calculation, far from truth or reality. Leadership in any political party which draws support from any section of the society cannot practice what Mayawati or Mulayam or for that matter any regional outfits like DMK, AIADMK, TDP to name a few which have only one leader and who is not questioned at all within the party. For instance Mayawati commands about 21% dalit vote share which has never questioned her involvement in various scams or corruption charges, instead are nicely convinced that this all has been forged by the upper castes including those in CBI and judiciary. Remember that this was not true in case of Rajeev Gandhi in Bofors allegations, a large number of congress supporters voted against him in 1989. Thus unquestionable support dalit support base which is at disposal of Mayawati permits her to broden her vote bank by throwing some bread pieces to Muslims, Brahmins etc. As against this Congress very recently tried to woo OBCs specially keeping UP elections in view, failed to get any additional OBC vote, in the process lost some upper casts support base which is why it has failed to do well in the recent elections. In other words, the question before mainstream political parties is that whether or not they can venture to expand their support base while retaining its core support base. BJP, for example, whenever tried to look towards muslims , the core support based smelled a rat and opposed the move.
Leaders like Mayawati can afford such social re-engineering for they have illiterate and most devoted core support base. This, however, appears to be a temporary phase, as dominant upper castes power centers will never accept dalit leadership in the long run.
