Editorial: BSP’s revolving door politics

It has been a political rollercoaster for Akash, who was first named as her successor by Mayawati in December 2023

For Akash Anand, the nephew of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, the political career is akin to being caught in a revolving door loop. His frequent unceremonious exits from the party are only matched by his dramatic comebacks. All this at the whims and fancies of Mayawati, the mercurial party chief whose decisions are often unpredictable and impulsive. Being in and out of the party at regular intervals has become a default mode for this management graduate from the United Kingdom. Given her capricious track record, Mayawati’s latest decision to appoint Akash as the party’s chief national coordinator comes as no surprise. He was expelled from the party in March this year for indulging in “anti-party activities”, only to be reinstated a month later. The significance of the latest decision lies in the fact that Mayawati has issued a missive to party leaders at all levels that they must now report their activities to Akash, who will, in future, accompany her at all political events. By naming him as the chief national coordinator and asking all party leaders to report to him, the BSP chief has virtually declared him as her political heir, a prospect that she had firmly ruled out in the past. It has been a political rollercoaster for Akash, who was first appointed as the national coordinator in June 2019 and named as the successor in December 2023. He was removed from the post in May 2024, only to be reinstated a month later. In March this year, he once again invited the wrath of his boss and was removed from all party posts.

However, a month later, he was taken back into the party and now given the number two position in the party hierarchy. When Mayawati first introduced Akash, son of her brother Anand Kumar, to the political forefront, it was seen as an attempt to groom a successor who could modernise the party and connect with a younger, social media-savvy electorate. With powerful oratory skills and a wide following among the cadre, Akash was seen as a ray of hope for the party that is facing an existential crisis. The reason cited for his summary removal — his links with an expelled BSP leader — smacked of authoritarianism. In fact, Mayawati’s style of functioning has traits similar to the ones that she accuses the ‘Manuwadi’ parties of. Four decades after Kanshi Ram founded the BSP to fight for political empowerment of the Dalit community, she is clearly squandering away his powerful legacy. Not long ago, she was seen as a contender for the Prime Minister’s post. But her fall has been swift and irreversible, and coincided with the rise of the BJP in her home state of Uttar Pradesh. A steady stream of desertions from the party comes as no surprise, given the state of limbo that it finds itself in.