There is little doubt that the western state of Maharashtra is in a state of political ferment. This may not be evident in the course of the electoral campaign but the undercurrents are too evident to be missed. By the end of the present electoral cycle, virtually no key player will emerge unchanged. The main battle-lines are drawn between the Shiv Sena-led saffron alliance, that hopes to return to power in the mantralaya, and the Congress-led Democratic Front. But no one can afford to ignore the new player on the scene in the shape of the Bahujan Samaj Party. Once a non-entity in the state, it made waves last May by capturing 3 per cent of the popular vote.

The importance of this becomes evident only in light of the polarized state of the polity. The two fronts were separated by a mere 3 per cent votes. To all intents and purposes, the performance of Mayavati?s party probably denied the Congress and its allies victory in as many as 8 Lok Sabha seats. The impact was magnified by the fact that the core of the BSP?s strength lay in the Vidarbha region, once a bastion of the Congress. Not only does the region have a Dalit population of over 20 per cent, it was also unusual in the extent to which the Dalit occupational base was diversified even a century ago. Across the Marathi-speaking region, every village had a Maharwada, and the Mahars, the most populous of the depressed classes, owned small plots of watan land in return for their services. But in Vidarbha, many became petty traders, cultivators and carpenters.

The BSP also broke into the vote bank of the Republican Party of India, many of whose faction-prone leaders are now coming together to face Mayavati?s challenge. In fact, the attack against the older RPI Dalit leadership is not unlike that launched in the early Seventies by the Dalit Panthers against a supine pro-Congress Dalit leadership. Now the RPI itself has largely been reduced to the role of a camp follower of different upper caste-led parties. Vidarbha also has a specific sub-regional dimension that the BSP has latched onto far better than would be expected of a party that is rooted in the Hindi-speaking Ganga valley, namely the cause of statehood. While both the larger parties have stepped away from the idea of a separate state of Vidarbha, Mayavati has made it a demand. She has strongly emphasized this in her meetings in each of the 11 districts of the Vidarbha.

Strange as it may sound, only the demise of the Congress-led alliance can enable a rapid growth of the BSP in the state as a whole. Dalits comprise a smaller proportion of the population than in Uttar Pradesh, and have traditionally been allied with the Congress or with one of the factions of the RPI. The Shiv Sena, despite its slogan of ?Bhim shakti?, and the Bharatiya Janata Party, are both stronger among the upper strata. Yet, the broader penumbra of the other backward classes is not quite the force it is in north India. The OBCs are fragmented and divided between different political parties. It is to woo them that Mayavati has given over 100 seats to the OBCs.

Maharashtra has had a very critical place in the evolution of the BSP as a party. It was while he was posted as an employee in the ordinance factory in Nagpur that an employee, Kanshi Ram, first launched an agitation to declare the birthday of B.R. Ambedkar as a holiday. In 1984, his employees? union, the Bamcef, which provided the nuclei for the creation of a political party, was stronger in Maharashtra than that in many other states. In fact, Kanshi Ram?s support base in the state was described as ?small but widespread, mainly on account of the union-level work of the Federation?.

In his early days, the future founder of the BSP was an RPI- sympathizer, but he was marked as one who would move on beyond its narrow ambit. This was evident in the very choice of the name ?bahujan? rather than Dalit as an epithet for the party.

The term was first used by the 19th-century social reformer, Jyoti Rao Phule. But in practice, it was co-opted by the large and populous community of the Maratha-Kunbis. The latter have dominated state politics in general and the Congress in particular. Unlike in the north again, Mayavati faces an uphill task due to the persistence of the Congress. No wonder she has the maximum number of candidates ? 272 in 288 seats. The aim is to create a broad net for catching votes. The aim will also be to play a decisive role in a host of contests: last May, her party came third in as many as 124 assembly segments. This time, she hopes to lead in and win a few seats.

On the face of it, Maharashtra is fertile ground for Dalit-led politics. The literacy rate is significantly higher than in the north. The number of government employees and school teachers is also larger. Though the BSP has no direct association with Buddhism, the revival of the faith as a religion of dignity and assertion will stand it in good stead. But it is no mean task to create and sustain a third force in a highly polarized state, as Sharad Pawar found to his cost. What will work to the advantage of the BSP is the slow eclipse of the older formations that held in them the seeds of an alternative. The end of the textile industry has put paid to communism in the oldest strongholds of labour militancy in the country. The agrarian parties like the Peasants and Workers? Party are past their peak. The older Dalit leadership has been unable to win any significant share of power except in name. Issues of poverty and agrarian distress have no real champion.

It is this political vacuum that has enabled Mayavati to make a splash. But this is her first really big electoral test outside the Hindi belt after becoming president of the party. Until now, there has been a deep disconnect between Dalit politics in north India and western India. In the former, electoral politics has had a primacy, be it in the case of Ram Vilas Paswan or Kanshi Ram.

In Maharashtra, a long history of social and cultural reform movements preceded political assertion. It is the crisis point reached by Dalit politics and by the Congress in the state that has given the BSP the opening it has long looked for south of the Vindhyas. While focussing on the bigger players, few seem to have grasped that a core anti-Sena voting group may well be marching to the beat of a different drum. Were this to happen, it will be part of the unravelling of the older social alliances that have defined the political landscape of western India for decades.