Click to play videoBundelkhand (Uttar Pradesh): The political landscape of Uttar Pradesh has been a changing one and Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati seems to be a major contributor to it.
"There is a wave in favour of Mayawati. People want her to become the chief minister," says BSP candidate from Madhogarh, Hari Om Upadhyay.
Ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in the state, Upadhyay, once a BJP leader and now a BSP candidate from Madhogarh Assembly constituency, is doing whatever it takes to seek votes from the Urmi community for the BSP cause.
He is presently in Jalone district, from where the BSP bagged the first of its three Assembly seats during the 1989 Uttar Pradesh elections.
In fact, it was the first time that the party experimented with UP's caste laboratory, bringing together under its umbrella a combination of the Most Backward Castes, the Dalits and Muslims.
So in 1989, the three candidates who won from the BSP were a Muslim, a member of the MBC group and a Dalit. This time around, in three out of the four seats, BSP has put up upper caste candidate.
Suresh Chandra Tiwari — a BSP candidate from Orai — is also busy at the party election office, where Dalits and Brahmins sleep and manage elections together under one roof. "Brahmin vote could get split but it won't split too much," says Tiwari.
BSP's Brahmin seeks blessings from former BSP workers who have embraced Buddhism, even if for the sake of votes its a transformation which cant be overlooked.
The big question that will be answered at the end of the month-long election is — has the caste cauldron changed in UP?
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