It also points to the inner contradictions of a political project which envisages exclusive support of the Dalits. And it comes at a time when the party finds that political power is not within its reach unless it aligns with parties representing the interests of other castes.

There lies Kanshi Ram's dilemma. He has allied with parties of all hues in his pursuit of power: in Punjab, he has flirted with everyone in the business -- the Congress, the Akali Dal and the BJP. In UP he has tied and united political knots with the SP, the BJP and the Congress. In the process, the BSP bandwagon seems to have come to a halt.

When the Dalits all over the country were desperately seeking liberation from the "vote-bank" politics hoisted by the Congress as acontinuation of the feudal Jajmani system based on patron-client relationship, Kanshi Ram seemed to be emerging as the rallying point for a strong pan-Indian Dalit movement. But the BSP's hiccups in the Hindi heartland have left the Dalits in Southern states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka confused and confounded.

The 1998 election results have come as a surprise to the BSP. Its group of MPs in the Lok Sabha has shrunk from 11 to five. It lost all the seats in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. In UP it lost two seats and the winners like Arif Mohammed Khan (Behraich) and Akbar Ahmed Dumpy (Azamgarh) had their own personal support base in their areas.

This itself should not unduly worry Kanshi Ram, who founded the BSP in 1984 and succeeded in getting it the status of a registered national party within the shortest span in the post-Independence Indian politics. Though it won lesser number of seats this time, its vote share in UP remain intact and has increased, albeit marginally, in Madhya Pradesh,Rajasthan and Haryana.

Kanshi Ram's problem is that except in the case of the 1993 SP-BSP alliance, none of its alliances has helped the party grow. Its opportunistic deals with the BJP in Uttar Pradesh have discouraged other non-Dalit deprived sections from gravitating towards it. Initially, when Kanshi Ram decided to revive Ambedkarite politics in North India, he had managed to rope in good chunks of Non-Dalits, specially the most backward castes and the Muslims.

He did it on purpose. During a speech at Ambedkar's birth anniversary in 1991, Ram's candid admission was: "It is possible to consolidate the Harijan vote, but that will not suit my purpose. If the Harijans vote overwhelmingly for the BSP it might alienate other opponents of Bahujan Samaj like Muslims and backwards. I am trying to unite all these social groups."

The 1993 BSP pact with the SP was seen as a logical culmination of this thinking and the outcome of the successive electoral battles in UP has proved that it would have been aformidable combination against the forces of status quo. However, the break-up of this combination, Kanshi Ram's subsequent adventures with the BJP and other upper-caste outfits and Mayawati's aggressive imposition of Ambedkarism have upset his applecart.

The BSP's latest ally in Haryana, Devi Lal's Haryana Lok Dal proved equally undependable for Kanshi Ram's political project when it switched sides to support the BJP at Centre.

In a way the BSP's predicament demonstrates the limitations of caste-based politics that Kanshi Ram has been playing, totally oblivious of the socio-economic agenda which will serve the interests of the deprived sections he seeks to represent.

No wonder Kanshi Ram's problems are multiplying and not the least of them is the increasing fragmentation of the BSP leadership ever since it became a part of the ruling elite. The party has split again and again after its first taste of power because its leaders quarrelled over the spoils of power. And now with Kanshi Ram and Mayawaticharting their own trajectories, the party seems set on a self-destruction course.

The first signs of rifts surfaced when Masood Ahmed, a talented Aligarh Muslim University law graduate from Faizabad who was made the Education Minister in Mulayam Singh's SP-BSP government in UP, resigned after a tiff with Mayawati. Two prominent Muslim BSP office-holders, general secretary Mohammad Islam and former State legislature party leader Sheikh Suleman, followed. Subsequently, Raj Bahadur, one of the founder members of the BSP, the party's UP chiefs Jag Bahadur Patel and Bhagwat Pal left the BSP following acrimonious differences with Mayawati, alienating the party's kurmi supporters.

Kanshi Ram and Mayawati tried to compensate for their loss by wooing politicians from other castes. But when the BSP ditched the BJP, they ,too, left to form a splinter group and become ministers in the Kalyan Singh government. These desertions and defections may have so far not made any dent in the BSP's Dalit vote bank. But thegrowing differences between Mayawati and Kanshi Ram indicate that dark days are ahead for the only viable Ambedkarite party in the post-Independence India.

There is a real danger that like its predecessors in Dalit politics, like the Republican Party of India (RPI), BSP leaders may end up being co-opted by the upper-caste ruling establishment.

Should that happen, Kanshi Ram may lose his solid base in UP and adjoining areas of Indo-Gangetic plains also.