MAYAWATI GOT THE COMMAND OF BSP 22 YEARS AGO, HOW WILL ANAND BE ABLE TO FLY TO SKY WITH A WEAK BASE? , BSP MAYAWATI AKASH ANAND PARTY COMMAND CHALLENGE DALIT POLITICS ATTRACT SABHA ELECTIONS 2024 PI NEWS MAYAWATI GOT THE COMMAND OF BSP 22 YEARS AGO, HOW WILL ANAND BE ABLE TO FLY TO SKY WITH A WEAK BASE? , BSP MAYAWATI AKASH ANAND PARTY COMMAND CHALLENGE DALIT POLITICS ATTRACT SABHA ELECTIONS 2024

Will Mayawati’s cousin Akash Anand be able to show BSP its old days?

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram worked to create political consciousness among the Dalit community across the country, which saw Mayawati become the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh four times. At one time BSP emerged as the third force in the country. Kanshi Ram declared Mayawati as his political successor on 15 December 2001 in Lucknow. Mayawati took the party to political heights and formed the government with full majority in 2007. After 22 years, Mayawati on Sunday declared her cousin Akash Anand as her political heir.

When Kanshi Ram handed over the command of the party to Mayawati 22 years ago, BSP climbed to heights but now the political base of the party is shrinking election after election. When Kanshi Ram made Mayawati the heir, BSP was the second party in UP with 21 percent votes, but now it is the fourth party with 13 percent votes. Even outside UP, the political graph of BSP has fallen in every state. In such a situation, Akash Anand has a crown full of thorns. Will Akash Anand, who grew up under the shadow of Mayawati and learned the ropes of politics, be able to take BSP to political heights?

Kanshiram took BSP forward

BSP was founded by Kanshi Ram on 14 April 1984 on Ambedkar Jayanti. Before the formation of BSP, Kanshiram was posted as a class one officer in the ammunition factory of Pune. It was here that Dinabhaana, a resident of Jaipur, Rajasthan, worked as a class IV employee. He was associated with the SC, ST Welfare Association there. Dinabhaana had a dispute with her senior about leave on Ambedkar Jayanti. In return, he was suspended. After this, when Kanshi Ram came to know about this, he said, ‘I cannot rest in peace until I give leave to the person who did not give leave on the birth anniversary of Baba Saheb Ambedkar.’

Kanshi Ram took up the fight for the Dalits, backward classes and the deprived and he too was suspended. From here BAMCEF (All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation) was born. Later DS-4 and BSP were established. Kanshi Ram promised that he would dedicate himself to leading the movement for the rights of Dalits and to give them power, would neither marry nor amass property for himself. Kanshi Ram, founder of the BSP, churned politics in such a way that all the political equations were turned upside down and worked to create political consciousness within the Dalit community.

Kanshiram brought Mayawati into politics

It was Kanshi Ram who brought Mayawati into politics in the eighties. Kanshi Ram inspired Mayawati to enter politics instead of becoming an IAS. She joined Kanshi Ram during the period of struggle. Struggled step by step with Kanshi Ram and became the Chief Minister for the first time in 1995. On December 15, 2001, at a meeting in Lucknow, Kanshi Ram said, “I have been coming to UP less for a long time, but the fortunate thing is that Mayawati has not made me feel my absence.” Then he declared Mayawati as his successor and in 2003 Mayawati became the national president of BSP. Four years after Mayawati took control of BSP, Mayawati formed the government in UP with full majority in 2007.

Mayawati continued Kanshi Ram’s tradition of declaring his successor, but Kanshi Ram did not take any member of his family forward. But Mayawati gave preference to her family for a political heir and declared her cousin Akash Anand as her successor. Akash Anand started learning political skills from Mayawati in 2017.

Since the 2019 elections, Mayawati has taken him with her to rallies and public meetings as training. After this he gradually started getting important responsibilities of different states and now before 2024 Mayawati declared herself as her commander.

Large political bet of Mayawati

In terms of strategy, this is considered a big political bet by BSP, but it will be a challenge to take forward the declining political support base of the party and connect the youth with the party. From UP to states across the country, the political graph of BSP is falling election after election and the Dalit community is getting disillusioned with Mayawati and BSP. In such a situation, the crisis over the political future of BSP deepened. The 2024 elections are the most difficult and challenging elections ever for his party as well as important in terms of future politics.

Mayawati has already announced that BSP will contest alone in the 2024 elections. If BSP’s vote percentage and number of MPs do not increase, the political path for the party will become difficult. BSP has already suffered the consequences of fighting alone in 2014. BSP has one MLA in UP and two MLAs won in Rajasthan. BSP has no MLA in the rest of the states of the country, while at one time BSP was successful in establishing its roots in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Punjab and Chhattisgarh along with UP. Even though the BSP government was not formed in other states of the country like UP, the MLAs and MPs won.

After climbing, now BSP on slope

Even though BSP was successful in forming the government in UP with full majority in 2007, there has been a decline since then. In the 2012 UP elections, BSP decreased from 206 seats in 2007 to 80 seats. In 2017, BSP was reduced to just 19 seats. In the 2022 elections, BSP won one seat and was reduced to 13 percent votes. In the last decade, many of his trusted generals began to join other parties. First, non-Jatav Dalits shifted from BSP to BJP in UP and in 2022, there was a break in Jatav votes as well.

BSP now looks weak everywhere in UP and outside states. The party organization is in a poor condition in the states of North India including Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi. In such a situation, Mayawati seems to have nothing concrete to leave as a legacy, except the record of history. The party has not been successful in uniting even its core Dalit voters. After being out of power, Dalits are becoming increasingly disillusioned with Mayawati. In such a situation, Akash Anand will have to face the challenges of winning the confidence of Dalit votes as well as arresting the party’s declining support base.

Will Akash be able to get the party out of trouble?

According to political analysts, the biggest challenge before 28-year-old Akash Anand is to rebuild the party and regain the trust of the Dalit community. The first thing he did was to increase his reach among the youth of the Dalit community of Uttar Pradesh, who are constantly being separated from the party. The political equation of BSP created by Kanshi Ram has gone awry and Chandrashekhar Azad is positioning himself as the new leadership among the Dalits. In this way, BSP is surrounded in a political maze, where on one side BJP has taken non-Jatav votes into its fold, while on one side Chandrashekhar is trying to add Jatav votes to himself. In such a situation, Akash Anand will be able to establish himself as the political heir of Mayawati, just as Mayawati established herself as the successor of Kanshi Ram.

Even in the recent assembly elections, Akash Anand handled the party’s election campaign in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, where the party fared much worse than the previous elections. Except in Rajasthan, BSP’s account was not even opened in any state and the vote percentage also fell. This time, BSP got 2.09 percent votes in Chhattisgarh, 1.82 percent in Rajasthan, 3.4 percent in Madhya Pradesh and 1.38 percent in Telangana. Mayawati, who was seen as the face of Dalit politics, no longer shines the same as before. In such a situation, the biggest challenge for Mayawati’s new successor Akash Anand is to strengthen the confidence among the Dalits, the core vote bank of the party. Will Akash Anand be able to show any charisma in Dalit politics in such a situation?

Courtesy : Pro IQRA

Note: This news piece was originally published in proiqra.com and used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Righ