Editorial: BSP’s dynasty card

Handing over the baton to Anand, a political novice, shows that the BSP supremo has run out of ideas to revive the party

Once seen as an undisputed Dalit icon and a potential prime ministerial candidate, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, a four-time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, is now a pale shadow of her past self, facing a steady erosion of her support base. None of her political strategies seems to be helping in resurrecting her crumbling career, while the BJP, through some smart social engineering, is clearly chipping away at her citadel. The anointment of her 28-year-old nephew Akash Anand as her political successor reflects a desperate move on the part of Mayawati to infuse new energy into the party. In the bargain, the BSP, which once claimed to represent alternative politics, has finally fallen into a familiar trap of dynastic politics. This comes as an ironic twist for Mayawati who had declared, in her autobiography in 2008, that she would never appoint a family member as her successor. Handing over the baton to Anand, a political novice with no mass base, shows that the BSP supremo has run out of ideas to revive the party. Anand is the son of the BSP chief’s youngest brother Anand Kumar. He returned to India after completing his education in London in 2017 and has been associated with the BSP ever since. Anand oversaw the BSP campaigns in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh in the recently held Assembly elections and the result has been pathetic as the party was unable to find ways to attract voters.

His elevation may not go down well with the followers of the BSP founder Kanshi Ram, who was against dynastic politics and kept his family away from it. As the BSP has not sided with either the opposition I.N.D.I.A bloc or the NDA, it is likely to be at the receiving end for promoting family rule. The biggest failure of the BSP, since Kanshi Ram handed over the reins to Mayawati nearly 22 years ago, is that it has not encouraged second-rung leadership nor did it allow grassroots leaders to emerge. The growing dictatorial attitude of Mayawati and her coterie, corruption among party leaders, absence of internal democracy and a clear disconnect with the people’s issues were responsible for the party’s decline. Its debacle shows that the Dalit community can no longer be taken for granted for votes by any political party and that they yearn for genuine social and political empowerment. History gave Mayawati, a self-made woman, an opportunity to change the fate of Dalits and the marginalised, but she appears to have squandered it away. At the peak of popularity, the BSP won an absolute majority in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections with 206 seats but was reduced to 80 in 2012. Its seat share declined further to 19 in the 2017 elections while in 2022, it just won one seat.

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