Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati's sudden decision to divest her nephew Akash Anand of his responsibilities as party national coordinator, comes less than five months after she anointed him as her political successor. The surprise decision came on the day voting was held for the third phase of the Lok Sabha polls in the country.
Although the move took many political observers by surprise, a closer look at the Mayawati-led party shows that BSP’s second rung leadership has virtually been wiped out under her reign. Several prominent leaders including R K Chaudhury, Sone Lal Patel, Om Prakash Rajbhar, many of whom were trained under the founder of BSP Kanshi Ram and were considered as a strong second line of leaders, have either been expelled or have left the party voluntarily.
The rise and fall of Akash Anand
Akash, son of Mayawati’s youngest brother Anand Kumar, has been associated with the BSP since 2017. He was appointed as the party’s national coordinator in 2019 when the BSP secured the second-highest number of seats in Uttar Pradesh and has been the face of many election campaigns since then, even during the assembly elections held late last year and the ongoing Lok Sabha elections as well.
He addressed his first rally in 2019, when BSP was then part of the Mahagathbandhan alliance led by Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections this year, Akash even organised a 14-day 'Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay Sankalp Yatra’ – a clear shift from Mayawati’s style of campaigning. While on one hand is Mayawati, who is now 68 years old, on the other, Akash, 29 years old, was more visible on the ground, leading yatras and organisational meetings in an effort to raise issues concerning Dalits, religious minorities, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and tribals.
However, Mayawati’s decision to remove Akash as her successor came close on the heels of the police booking him and four others for violation of Model Code of Conduct for allegedly using objectionable language at a poll rally in Sitapur. “This government is a bulldozer government and a government of traitors. The party that leaves its youth hungry and enslaves its elderly is a terrorist government. Taliban runs such a government in Afghanistan,” Akash had said at the rally.
In her announcement, Mayawati had said, "Along with promoting other people in the party, I had declared Shri Akash Anand as the national coordinator and a successor, but in the larger interest of the party and the movement, he is being divested of both these important responsibilities until he attains full maturity."
Second-rung leadership missing in BSP
The party, which once emerged from the Dalit-Bahujan movement and went to form a majority on its own in May 2007, is now visibly devoid of any second level of competent leadership. Mayawati holds the supreme command of the party in her hands.
As Outlook reported in 2022, BSP’s ground-level cadre has vanished, the base vote has shifted, and its volunteers are missing. “During earlier campaigns, the BSP cadre maintained a proper register, from booth committees to the top level. The documents may be still there, but the present efforts are not yielding anything significant,” Faisal Fareed, a lucknow-based journalist wrote for Outlook last year.
Several of the party’s top leaders have now joined other parties. Brijlal Khabri, who quit BSP in October 2016, is now heading Congress in UP. Thakur Jaiveer Singh and SP Singh Baghel, who were with BSP earlier, are now ministers in the BJP-led state government. Brijesh Pathak, who was one of the main proponents of BSP’s social engineering experiment in 2007, is Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP government.
While Akash Anand seemed like a potential heir to Mayawati, his dismissal points towards the party’s same-old pattern.
Mayawati’s history with BJP in Uttar Pradesh
Mayawati has often been dubbed as the 'B' team of BJP by the Samajwadi Party (SP). She had formed the government with the BJP's support in Uttar Pradesh thrice – 1995, 1997 and 2002.
The party has also often sided with the central government in the parliament on matters like abrogation of Article 370 and also lent support to the NDA’s presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu. The party also attended the inauguration of the new parliament building, which most opposition parties stayed away from.
Ahead of this year’s Lok Sabha elections, BSP’s lone MLA, Uma Shankar Singh extended support to the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha election (Even though the saffron party did not need the extra vote to win).
The BSP is fighting this election alone, even though its alliance with the SP yielded good results for both the parties earlier. However, Mayawati divesting her nephew of party responsibilities days after he made remarks against the BJP has raised questions about her approach towards the saffron party.
