Mayawatigoes back to Bahujanbasics, demands caste census

Given that BSP was not able to win a single seat in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, with its core Dalit votes shifting to other parties, now supremo Mayawati is trying to go back to the basics and redraw the party's bahujan strategy. Behenji has now demanded a caste census from the central government. However, the challenge before the party is not only to win back Brahmin, Muslim, and non-Yadav backward class votes, a strategy that propelled it to power in 2007, but to also win back the nearly 21 per cent Dalit vote, 12 per cent of this being Jatav, which is Mayawati's caste. Furthermore, Mayawati also targeted the Samajwadi Party (SP) over its decision to appoint a Brahmin MLA as the Leader of Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. Mayawati claimed that the SP secured the votes of the PDA (Pichda, Dalit, and Alpsankhyak or Backwards, Dalits and Minorities) community to win a large number of seats in the Lok Sabha by misleading them, but ignored the group while appointing the Leader of Opposition in Uttar Pradesh.