Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati’s resignation from the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday is possibly her strongest attempt yet to regain lost ground among her Dalit base. It comes two months after her party launched a massive campaign to firmly reclaim its hold on the legacy of BR Ambedkar, which newer groups like Dalit rights organisation Bhim Army have been chipping away at, and which the Bharatiya Janata Party has also sought to appropriate.

Mayawati resigned hours after she walked out of the Upper House after claiming she was not allowed to speak about atrocities against Dalits in Uttar Pradesh.

The extent to which her sudden resignation will help her capture the centrestage of Dalit politics in the state remains a matter of speculation as her party has been under siege for quite some time now. It was decimated in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when it failed to win a single seat, while in the Assembly elections held in Uttar Pradesh earlier this year, it managed a paltry 19 seats, down from 80 in 2012.

However, Mayawati’s resignation makes it clear that despite electoral reversals her ability to shock her opponents remains intact. The support her resignation has garnered among the Dalit youth provides her party the opportunity to reach out to them ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Battle for Ambedkar

The launch of the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Ambedkar campaign coincided with Mayawati’s remarks referring to the Bhim Army as “a product of the BJP” on May 25. As interpretations of her statement flew thick and fast, the party launched a state-wide “campaign for self-respect and dignity” in the name of Ambedkar throughout Uttar Pradesh. It was clearly aimed at establishing the party as Ambedkar’s sole political inheritor.

The campaign may not have attracted much media attention but the buzz at the grassroots regarding the campaign is getting louder. “Through cadre meetings we have been working hard to make Babasaheb Ambedkar as the focal point of our awareness campaign among Dalits,” Balmukund Dhuria, a party leader in Uttar Pradesh’s Ambedkar Nagar district, told this reporter around the beginning of July.

On Tuesday, after the news of Mayawati’s resignation became public, Dhuria said: “We shape our campaign and afterwards our campaign shapes us. I have never lost my awe for Behenji [as Mayawati is referred to inside the party]. Her resignation from the Rajya Sabha will only strengthen the party’s campaign which was launched towards the end of May.”

Just 10 days ago, on July 8, Mayawati reviewed the progress of the campaign at a meeting with party leaders at Lucknow.

The statement issued after the meeting said:

“The BSP is being targeted by the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] and the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh], which are misusing the state power to fulfill their communal and casteist agenda. Similar reprehensible attacks were made against Babasaheb but he did not surrender. Like Dr Ambedkar, the BSP, which is the sole party working for Babasaheb’s vision, is also determined to move forward despite reverses in recent elections.”

Her resignation letter to the chairman of the Rajya Sabha stressed upon a point that seems to be central to the party’s Ambedkar campaign in the state.

It said:

“When I got up to speak, the government side did not allow me to complete. Their members stood up and interfered. […] I have no moral right to be in the House if I am not allowed to put across my views on atrocities being committed against Dalits.”

While Mayawati’s resignation is likely to be rejected on technical grounds as, under the rules of the House, an MP’s resignation must be limited to a single sentence and must not be conditional, her action has greatly succeeded in making the issue of atrocities against Dalits in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, particularly in Saharanpur, a major talking point inside and outside Parliament.