India, June 1 -- In 1996, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was on the rise when a beleaguered Congress sought an alliance for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. The BSP obliged. By then, the BSP had shared power with the Samajwadi Party (SP) for a year and 181 days and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for 137 days. The BSP was in demand for clout among the Bahujan Samaj, or the marginalised sections of Dalits, Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and religious minorities, and its leadership was not averse to forging alliances with parties across ideological divides.

The Congress-BSP alliance was described as a surrender to a 12-year-old party. But it held out hope for the declining Congress, whose vote share in Uttar Pr...