NEW DELHI, May 11 — In the age-old caste divisions of India, a new political calculus has emerged.
The elections in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state and traditionally a bellwether of national politics, delivered victory on Friday to a party that champions the interests of low-caste Dalits, led by a schoolteacher-turned-politician who goes by one name: Mayawati.
Ms. Mayawati’s triumph lay not only in rallying the state’s Dalits around her party, but also in astutely fusing its traditional low-caste base with people from the other end of the social ladder — upper-caste Brahmins, whom she aggressively wooed.
As a result, her Bahujan Samaj Party defied analysts’ predictions and secured 202 seats of the 396 announced as of Friday night for the 403-seat assembly, sufficient to lead the state government without any coalition partners. Uttar Pradesh, as well as the nation, has been governed by coalitions in recent years.
With 113 million voters, the Uttar Pradesh electorate is nearly twice the size of the population of France. Voter turnout was 48 percent.
The ascendance of caste-based parties has transformed Indian politics in recent decades, but Ms. Mayawati’s victory is the first time a Dalit-led party has won a state election single-handedly. It is also the first time a Dalit party has so deliberately embraced Brahmins into its political fold.
Surveys of voters leaving the polls this week, conducted by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, indicated that the Bahujan Samaj Party secured the vast majority of the Dalit vote, along with substantial shares of lower-caste groups that call themselves “backwards” and of upper-caste voters.
The surveys also indicated, though, that caste loyalties were not necessarily the voters’ principal concern. Yogendra Yadav, a senior fellow at the center, said voters surveyed identified price increases and other issues of social and economic development as their top priorities.
“Caste is an alphabet, it is the building block through which people demand routine stuff, which people demand all over the world,” Mr. Yadav said. “They want their interests protected. They want a share in power.”
The victory of the Bahujan Samaj Party — whose name literally means the majority society party — does not directly affect India’s Congress Party-led coalition government. But the Congress Party’s hopes to improve its frail standing in Uttar Pradesh did not materialize. The state is the Gandhi-Nehru family’s home base. But despite last-minute campaigning by the party’s heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi, the Congress performed poorly.
Its one saving grace, perhaps, was that its national rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, also fared badly. National elections are scheduled for 2009.
Ms. Mayawati’s rival, Mulayam Singh Yadav, seems to have suffered from anti-incumbency sentiments, which are common in Indian politics. He resigned his position of chief minister on Friday afternoon. His opponents criticized his administration for deteriorating law and order in the state, along with charges of corruption.
It remains to be seen whether the victory of the Bahujan Samaj Party will translate into specific policies to lift up the low-caste citizens of Uttar Pradesh. Dalits, also known as untouchables, are traditionally assigned the most tedious and sometimes demeaning occupations. They also have among the lowest rates of education and wealth.
Ms. Mayawati has held the post of chief minister three times before, but always in coalition with other parties.
On Friday, her supporters were shown on television lighting fireworks, dousing one another with festive colored powders and doling out sweets. Late Friday afternoon, at the party headquarters in Lucknow, the state capital, Ms. Mayawati stood beneath the statues of three Dalit leaders, herself among them, and tossed rose petals at their feet before taking the microphone.
“I assure the people that I will provide a government based on rule of law, justice, free from fear and the Mafia,” she said, adding, “I thank upper-caste voters who backed us.”
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