Mayawati eyes PM's post, woos upper castes

New Delhi: With eyes on the top political post of the country, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati is all set to modify the party's original focus on the Bahujan Samaj (SC, OBCs and minorities) to widen its base.

In an appeal for Lok Sabha elections, which can be termed as BSP election manifesto, Mayawati categorically told her supporters that they cannot gain power at the Centre for "establishing equalitarian social order" by keeping the upper caste people out.

"For this, we will have to carry along with us savarn (upper caste) Hindus also on the basis of a spirit of social brotherhood by changing their casteist mindset," she said.

"What I am implying is that the ideology and policies of the BSP are not against the people of the upper caste society," she said.

The doors of the BSP are always open for admission and advancement of such people with dignity and self-respect, she added.

She appealed to the upper caste people to think over the question why the party would have kept them in the organisation at the national and state levels had its ideology and policies been against the savarn samaj (upper caste people)?

"Why would the BSP have fielded such people on its tickets in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections and on formation of its government inducted them into honourable positions of ministers? From this, it is fully clear that the ideology and policies of our party are based on the principle of sarvjan hitaiy and sarvjan sukhaiy (progress and prosperity for all)," she said.

Mayawati said getting the "master key of political power" was a must for the party to achieve its objectives.

The BSP supremo sought to caution her voter and also the people of the upper castes that the opposition parties would try their best that the BSP did not get the votes of the savarn samaj and to this end they could try to project the ideology and policies of the party in a distorted manner before the upper castes.

"This is despite the fact that the ideology and policies of our party are not against any caste and religion, in other words the BSP wants to establish an equalitarian social order in this country by changing the inequitable social order based on caste line," said Mayawati in her appeal.

The BSP had successfully changed its electoral and political strategy in the last Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and fielded a large number of candidates from the upper castes, which had paid it rich dividends in the form of an absolute majority in the state legislature.

After the success of what had come to be described as her "social engineering", the BSP had been trying to replicate the experiments in other states of the country, which brought her some success in the November Assembly elections in some states.

Mayawati now wants to go to the hustings with the same strategy.

The BSP had won 19 seats, all from Uttar Pradesh, in the last Lok Sabha elections, and hopes to increase its tally further in the state besides getting a few more seats outside the state in the coming elections.