Click to play videoAllahabad: In the battle for Uttar Pradesh, the emerging frontrunner seems to be the Bahujan Samaj Party led by feisty Mayawati.
BSP workers insists theirs not a party, but a social revolution.
Ironically, though the party’s "social revolution" is led by a woman, there is little space for women or for gender justice in the BSP. So much so, that their female commander-in-chief cannot even afford to betray her soft side.
Even the exceptions - that are anyway few and far between - can hardly be counted as active party workers.
Take for example Pooja Pal. Twenty-three-year old Pooja is the widow of the murdered BSP MLA Raju Pal and is the BSP candidate from Allahabad West.
But even Pooja, the best-known woman in BSP after Mayawati, got a ticket only because of her dead husband. “I am trying to do my husband's work,” she says.
Even the other party workers believe Pooja is her husband’s protégé, and that’s about it. “She is a reminder of what Raju Pal was for us,” says BSP worker Abhimanyu Shukla.
The dutiful widow marches to the tune of male advisers and her campaign party is mostly male. The BSP office in Allahabad is populated with male politicians and so is the party workers’ list.
The coterie of Mayawati – or Behenji (sister) as she is known - is an all male club and party tickets are given out strictly on the basis of the ability to win votes, not on gender justice.
Says Pooja’s election agent Rajesh Mishra, “Behenji gives tickets to only those who are liked by the public,”
In these elections, the BSP has given 15 tickets - the lowest number - to women, as opposed to Congress that has given 40 tickets and BJP that has 32 women candidates in the fray.
And though they are never on stage or on the power seat, the exceptional feature of all Mayawati's rallies is the prominent presence of women.
“Women were not prominent in BSP. They are coming up only slowly,” agrees party worker Pratibha Devi.
The famous poet Tulsidas once said: Dhol ganwar shudra pashu nari, yeh sab taaran ke adhikari (Women, animals and Shudra (lower-caste) should be thrown out of society)
But in a party that takes pride in calling itself the torchbearer for the Shudras, women perhaps are the only outcastes.
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