PUNE, 23 July 2007 — The Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is all set to rock and penetrate into the Congress and Nationalist Congress stronghold and the home turf of Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar by planning to hold an all-Brahmin and upper caste convention in Pune during December this year.

The convention plan, the brainchild of BSP leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati is an exercise to bolster its “social-engineering plans” on the lines of the Uttar Pradesh formula, in view of the elections to the Parliament and assembly in 2009.

The BSP leaders worked on the plan of the convention, after analyzing the growing dissent among the masses in the state against the Congress, NCP, Shiv Sena and BJP parties, after the state has plunged toward an economical crisis and a collapse of law and order.

The master planner of the convention is Sudhirdas Mahant, a priest of Nashik’s Kalaram Temple, who joined the BSP last year. Mahant, a Brahmin, had issued a statement stating that his grandfather, the then chief priest of the temple, had committed a grave mistake by not allowing the Dalit leader Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and his followers into the temple, and he would like to amend the mistake committed by his grandfather.

Mahant is the BSP’s Brahmin face in Maharashtra. The real brain behind the party’s shift in political line here is said to be another low profile but influential priest who has worked out the party’s new strategy for the state. Surprisingly Pandurang Dhole the former state president of Janata Dal (Secular) also joined the BSP recently.

Cashing on the dissent of the people against the political parties, the BSP was enrolling Brahmin priests and upper caste Hindus in the villages of northern and western regions of Maharashtra, with a political action plan to form a strong new alliance of castes in the state.

According to the BSP plans, more than 200 influential upper caste priests would give the BSP a platform to launch itself as a third alternative in the state with a new image.

A BSP leader told Arab News that his party anticipated no threat from Republican Party of India (RPI) or its splinter groups, as they are virtually dead, he said and added that the BSP would hold a number of Other Backward Classes convention for an image makeover.

Though political analysts agree that the BSP entry and its UP formula may give a serious jolt to political parties, particularly the Congress and NCP, yet its Brahmin and upper caste card may not work in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions, where the Dalits and OBCs are in a majority.

A senior BSP state leader said that his party would not only target the Dalits and the Buddhist community votes, but would also reach out to the other 400-odd OBC castes, which account for about 40 percent of the state’s population, and spearhead their problems, by cornering the Deshmukh, Patil and Pawar community too, he said.

In Mayawati’s gameplan, the Brahmins particularly, are the key to reaching out to OBC communities, said a BSP strategist. The Brahmins, he said, had no problem with the leadership of Mayawati, and the OBCs too are willing to accept her leadership as well. The other benefit of the Brahmins’ inclusion in the party is that the BSP would get dignity. The only drawback so far is that the BSP is yet to find a strong pan-Maharashtra face as yet, the party strategist admitted.