New Delhi: Rows of women and men sitting quietly on flooring mats and listening to her in rapt consideration had been a standard sight at conferences of Bahujan Samaj Get together (BSP) workplace bearers. At these conferences, chaired by social gathering supremo and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, this was a routine association simply till just a few years in the past.
Then got here the time when chairs had been laid out not only for her, however different attendees, because the BSP tried to shelve its regimented picture and method.
At public rallies too, Mayawati was now seen sharing the stage with different leaders.
It stays uncommon, although, to identify anybody aside from her on the dais in a gathering of BSP’s social gathering functionaries. Rarer nonetheless is for the social gathering to publicly launch photos displaying co-occupants of the rostrum.
Marking a break from the previous, the social gathering did precisely that on 8 July, after a huddle with BSP functionaries from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. The images shared by BSP on Twitter present Mayawati’s nephew and BSP nationwide coordinator Akash Anand, alongside along with his father and BSP nationwide vice-president Anand Kumar, occupying a settee close to Mayawati on the dais.
08-07-2023-BSP PRESS NOTE-HARAYANA-PUNJAB- CHANDIGARH REVIEW MEETING PHOTO pic.twitter.com/x1sDOqwbKY
— Mayawati (@Mayawati) July 8, 2023
The images have since grow to be a topic of intense dialogue in social gathering circles with Bahujan Samaj Get together leaders seeing it as a acutely aware transfer by the social gathering chief to ship one more sign — probably the sharpest to this point — that Akash is her heir-apparent.
“The social gathering functionaries and employees who attended the assembly returned with that impression, sure. Akash was made the social gathering’s nationwide coordinator in 2019 itself however by making him sit so near her on the dais, Behen ji (Mayawati) has made it evident that she is grooming him as a successor. When Manyavar Kanshi Ram was alive and operating the social gathering, Mayawati used to take a seat beside him,” mentioned a BSP chief primarily based in Uttar Pradesh.
Kanshi Ram, the founding father of BSP and Mayawati’s mentor, died in October 2006 after struggling a coronary heart assault. Following his demise, Mayawati took cost of the social gathering.
She has since drawn consideration to the succession query every now and then with a set of curious strikes, starting in 2008. In August that yr, addressing a rally in Lucknow, she reportedly declared that she had chosen her successor, with out revealing the title.
“The successor I’ve chosen for myself is somebody 18-20 years youthful than me and hails from my very own ‘chamar‘ neighborhood…However let me make it completely clear that he’s not anybody belonging to my household,” Rediff quoted Mayawati as having mentioned.
She had added that the title will likely be disclosed within the occasion of her “sudden demise” or if her “political adversaries succeed of their vicious recreation plan” of sending her to jail on trumped-up expenses. Quickly after, it emerged that she had appointed her private aide Rajaram the social gathering’s nationwide vice-president — a submit she occupied when Kanshi Ram was alive.
Rajaram was subsequently elected to the Rajya Sabha the place he accomplished two phrases.
Equally, Manoj Kumar and R. Sridhar — each her private attendants — had been elevated to the posts of nationwide secretaries between 2012 and 2016, triggering curiosity.
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Mayawati & the query of succession
Whereas the succession query was foregrounded by Mayawati herself in 2008, she has through the years largely prevented commenting on the problem.
In 2021, making a uncommon intervention on the matter, she reiterated that her successor could be a Dalit whose title could be stored beneath wraps so long as she was match to guide the social gathering. “I’m not going to be unfit anytime quickly,” she had mentioned.
Nonetheless, at the same time as she kept away from making direct feedback on the problem, the lengths to which Mayawati went to advertise her nephew inside the social gathering has solely cemented the notion that he was being groomed to guide the Bahujan Samaj Get together sooner or later.
Akash was first seen with Mayawati in April 2017, when his father Anand was appointed the BSP nationwide vice-president.
In keeping with a BSP insider, she had then launched Akash to social gathering functionaries as somebody who did his MBA from London and would assist in the social gathering’s easy functioning. That yr, he additionally accompanied her to Saharanpur within the aftermath of Thakur-Dalit clashes.
Anand stepped down from the submit of BSP vice-president in 2018 to counter allegations of nepotism, solely to be reappointed in 2019, on the situation that he would by no means maintain any public workplace or contest polls. Alongside along with his appointment, Akash was made the BSP nationwide coordinator, in what was thought-about an indication of issues to come back.
Whereas the BSP’s footprint has shrunk attributable to a sequence of electoral reverses — the social gathering’s tally within the Uttar Pradesh meeting dropped from 206 in 2007 to 1 in 2022 — Akash continues to carry the submit.
Final month, the 32-year-old was made the social gathering’s election incharge of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana. Quickly after the announcement, he tweeted his gratitude to Mayawati for ‘entrusting him with the vital duty’.
“As revered, Mayawati ji has mentioned, we are going to contest the upcoming meeting elections on points like exploitation of dalits, tribals and different backward lessons in any respect ranges, poverty, unemployment, worth rise. Bahujan mission and motion is the obligation of all of us, and with the religion with which I’ve been given the duty of this mission, I’ll preserve the identical religion of the highest management and all the employees,” he added.
Within the 2018 Rajasthan polls, six candidates contesting on BSP tickets received, whereas two emerged as winners in Chhattisgarh. The social gathering drew a clean in Madhya Pradesh in 2018, the place it bagged 4 seats within the 2013 polls.
Regardless of its decreased presence in state assemblies, the BSP managed to ship 10 MPs to the Lok Sabha in 2019 — an enchancment from 2014, when it didn’t get any candidate elected, in comparison with 2009 when it bagged 21 seats.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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