The Congress may be in a bit of a mess, but not Ms Mayavati. This has nothing to do with her triumph or defeat in the coming elections, but with her confidence and canniness. Even though Ms Mayavati’s rival, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, is running the government in Uttar Pradesh with his Samajwadi Party at the moment, the Dalit leader knows that the spread of the Bahujan Samaj Party’s voter base makes her a very alluring ally for any national coalition. Her moves suggest that she is setting the BSP up as an enigmatic and desirable partner for any group aspiring to power. If her Muslim voters are worried about her coy games with the Bharatiya Janata Party, she knows that they are equally unhappy with Mr Yadav. It is the other bases she must look to win. Her passionate defence of Dalit interests has always been matched by quite ruthless strategy. Her selection of candidates for the assembly elections, for example, based on local caste equations and community leadership, was a smaller edition of the BJP’s electoral strategy before the latter had become a talking point. Clothing her recent rebuff of the Congress’s overtures in a denunciation of its effort to sail two boats at once would have been ironic had it not been so effective. Ms Mayavati has not been too choosy about her allies when it served her purpose. But confidence and a big vote bank are good aids to amnesia.

There is method in the announcement of the BSP’s Lok Sabha candidates. Apart from fielding candidates in a number of states that have no BSP representation as yet, Ms Mayavati has indicated her total dissociation from the Congress by putting up candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareilly. She has also balanced the fact that there is no announced candidate opposite the prime minister in the Lucknow seat by saying that no one has yet approached her with the suggestion that a common opposition candidate be fielded against Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee. As strategist, she is admirable, her confidence is partly the genuine article and partly strategy again. In many ways, Ms Mayavati is Ms J. Jayalalithaa’s soul-sister. By going to the polls on its own, the BSP is deliberately opening itself up to post-poll bargaining with the highest bidder, with, perhaps, the interests of its leader uppermost. If the BJP begins to woo the BSP, the Taj corridor story may be given safe burial. The BJP would be quite adept at that if its own interests were involved. Ms Mayavati, Jayalalithaa style, also has an arch-rival in her own state. The only difference is that the Dalit leader is murmuring about prime ministerial ambitions. The elections will show which of the two is the better strategist.