The death of Uma Shankar Singh, the lone Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA in the Uttar Pradesh assembly, from Rasra in Ballia district, marks a watershed moment in Indian politics. For the first time since 1989, the Uttar Pradesh assembly will not have a BSP MLA. Come November 2026 and BSP’s only Rajya Sabha MP will also retire, leaving it without representation in the parliament as well. BSP, as a political party, occupies an important political place in India’s democratic history. It is the only party to have given India a Dalit chief minister (Mayawati) who completed a full-term in office, and that too in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh. BSP’s contribution to Indian democracy extends beyond just its stint in government. It transformed Dalit political assertion into an independent electoral force and compelled every major political party to compete for a constituency that had long remained on the political margins. Its decline, however, has been as spectacular as its rise.
