For the second time in a year, Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati’s insecurities and fears have got the better of her. In a span of nine months, Mayawati first stripped her nephew Akash Anand of all his posts in the party, and then expelled him this month.
The last time he was stripped of his position was during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when he directly blasted the ruling BJP – something that Mayawati has avoided doing since the BJP came to power at the centre in 2014.
This time, Akash has been accused of working under the influence of his father-in-law Ashok Siddhartha, a BSP MP, and attempting to build up a parallel system within the BSP. Ashok Siddhartha, incidentally, was also expelled from the BSP last month by Mayawati for alleged’ anti-party activities.’
Party insiders claim that Anand was trying to bring in young blood into the BSP and adopt a more aggressive style of politics which led to his ouster.
“She probably thought Akash would remain a faceless leader but he did not always dance to her tune,” a veteran BSP leader who has remained sidelined over the past decade, told this writer.
BSP’s steady slide over the last decade
The BSP has been steadily going downhill in UP since it lost power to Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls in 2012. Party workers feel that Mayawati, now 69, lacks the will to regain the party’s lost glory.
The BSP could not win even a single seat in the 2014 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The party had entered an alliance with Samajwadi Party in 2019 and managed to win ten seats but immediately after the polls, Mayawati snapped ties with SP.
In the 2022 UP assembly polls, the BSP hit rock bottom by winning just one seat—Rasra in Ballia district. It was clear that Dalits -except Jatavs - and Muslims have moved away from the BSP.
Anand’s plan for revival ran afoul of Mayawati’s insecurities
A party worker close to Akash Anand claims that the expelled leader tried to convince his aunt to change her style of functioning because another Dalit leader, Chandra Shekhar Azad, was snapping at their heels.
“Akash wanted the party to become more confrontational and aggressive in order to connect with the youth but she took it as a revolt on his part. She does not realize that it is her placid style of functioning that is forcing Dalits to look for alternatives – they seem to have already found one in Chandra Shekhar Azad, now an MP,” he pointed out.
The Bhim Army or the Azad Samaj Party, headed by Chandra Shekhar, is slowly but surely denting BSP’s vote base by presenting a more acceptable alternative to the Dalits in UP.
Two other reasons for the party’s downfall is its failure to challenge its opponents in electoral battles and faulty distribution of tickets.
“The main problem is that ‘Behen ji’ (as she is known in her party circle) does not wish to annoy the people in power and attract any kind of action in matters related to her disproportionate assets. She is highly insecure on this issue. She keeps targeting the Congress and SP but does not utter a word against BJP. Moreover, she has lost connect with the party cadres. Have you ever heard that she has visited a Dalit family that has been a victim in any case? Tickets in BSP are also given to those who do not necessarily subscribe to the party ideology,” said a former BSP state president.
The original second rung BSP leaders have been purged
After the demise of party founder Kanshi Ram, Mayawati made sure that she threw out all those who had been loyal to her mentor.
Majority of the leaders expelled by Mayawati joined the BJP while some headed towards the SP. All of them took away a section of the party’s cadres with them.
Swami Prasad Maurya was among those old war horses who rose through the ranks in the party and was shown the door by BSP chief Mayawati.
Kanshi Ram's loyalist Raj Bahadur -- a Dalit leader -- was first to get expelled when Mayawati took over reins of the party in 1995. He later joined the Congress and took nine MLAs along with him. There were others who were shown the door and this took away the entire second rung leadership in the BSP, thereby widening the gap between the leader and the workers in the party.
Satish Chandra Mishra, a Brahmin leader who rose to a high position in the BSP at one point in time, suddenly went missing before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. His visibility in party events is now negligible and one does not know whether he is still active in the party or has quietly moved out.
A party that’s fading
The BSP now has a leader who refuses to move with the times, is unwilling to fight political battles and is highly insecure about her own self. And all of this points to a bleak future for the BSP.
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