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    Extra Sofa On Mayawati's Dais Triggers Succession Buzz in BS

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    The document discusses Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party in India. At a recent party meeting, photos were released of her nephew Akash Anand sitting close to her on the stage, which has led to speculation that she is grooming him to succeed her as the party's leader. Mayawati has both hinted at and avoided naming a successor in the past. She reiterated in 2021 that her successor would be a Dalit, but has not revealed the name. Promoting her nephew within the party roles has increased perception that he is being prepared to lead it in the future.

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    Extra Sofa On Mayawati's Dais Triggers Succession Buzz in BS

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    The document discusses Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party in India. At a recent party meeting, photos were released of her nephew Akash Anand sitting close to her on the stage, which has led to speculation that she is grooming him to succeed her as the party's leader. Mayawati has both hinted at and avoided naming a successor in the past. She reiterated in 2021 that her successor would be a Dalit, but has not revealed the name. Promoting her nephew within the party roles has increased perception that he is being prepared to lead it in the future.

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    Extra sofa on Mayawati’s dais triggers succession buzz in BS

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    Extra sofa on Mayawati’s dais triggers succession buzz in BS

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    The document discusses Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party in India. At a recent party meeting, photos were released of her nephew Akash Anand sitting close to her on the stage, which has led to speculation that she is grooming him to succeed her as the party's leader. Mayawati has both hinted at and avoided naming a successor in the past. She reiterated in 2021 that her successor would be a Dalit, but has not revealed the name. Promoting her nephew within the party roles has increased perception that he is being prepared to lead it in the future.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    15 views5 pages

    Extra Sofa On Mayawati's Dais Triggers Succession Buzz in BS

    Uploaded by

    ttestxyz
    The document discusses Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party in India. At a recent party meeting, photos were released of her nephew Akash Anand sitting close to her on the stage, which has led to speculation that she is grooming him to succeed her as the party's leader. Mayawati has both hinted at and avoided naming a successor in the past. She reiterated in 2021 that her successor would be a Dalit, but has not revealed the name. Promoting her nephew within the party roles has increased perception that he is being prepared to lead it in the future.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    13/07/2023, 20:50 Extra sofa on Mayawati’s dais triggers succession buzz in BS

    Home  Politics  Quasi coronation of nephew? Extra sofa on Mayawati’s dais triggers succession buzz...

    Politics

    Quasi coronation of nephew? Extra sofa on Mayawati’s


    dais triggers succession buzz in BSP
    BSP chief & former UP CM Mayawati had said in 2021 that her political
    successor would be a Dalit, but she would not reveal the name as long as
    she was fit to lead the party.
    SOURAV ROY BARMAN 13 July, 2023 08:11 pm IST

    BSP chief Mayawati with brother Anand Kumar and nephew Akash Anand at meeting of party functionaries on 8
    July, 2023 | Twitter@Mayawati

    Text Size: A- A+

    New Delhi: Rows of men and women sitting quietly on floor mats and listening to
    her in rapt attention had been a common sight at meetings of Bahujan Samaj
    Party (BSP) office bearers. At those meetings, chaired by party supremo and former
    Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, this was a routine arrangement just until
    a few years ago.

    Then came the time when chairs were laid out not just for her, but other
    attendees, as the BSP tried to shelve its regimented image and approach.

    At public rallies too, Mayawati was now seen sharing the stage with other leaders.

    https://theprint.in/politics/quasi-coronation-of-nephew-extra-sofa-on-mayawatis-dais-triggers-succession-buzz-in-bsp/1668233/ 1/5
    13/07/2023, 20:50 Extra sofa on Mayawati’s dais triggers succession buzz in BS

    It remains rare, though, to spot anyone other than her on the dais in a meeting of
    BSP’s party functionaries. Rarer still is for the party to publicly release pictures
    showing co-occupants of the podium. 

    Marking a break from the past, the party did exactly that on 8 July, after a huddle
    with BSP functionaries from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. The pictures
    shared by BSP on Twitter show Mayawati’s nephew and BSP national coordinator
    Akash Anand, along with his father and BSP national vice-president Anand
    Kumar, occupying a sofa near Mayawati on the dais.

    08-07-2023-BSP PRESS NOTE-HARAYANA-PUNJAB-


    CHANDIGARH REVIEW MEETING PHOTO
    pic.twitter.com/x1sDOqwbKY

    — Mayawati (@Mayawati) July 8, 2023

    The pictures have since become a subject of intense discussion in party circles
    with Bahujan Samaj Party leaders seeing it as a conscious move by the party chief
    to send yet another signal — possibly the sharpest so far — that Akash is her heir-
    apparent.

    “The party functionaries and workers who attended the meeting returned with
    that impression, yes. Akash was made the party’s national coordinator in 2019
    itself but by making him sit so close to her on the dais, Behen ji (Mayawati) has
    made it evident that she is grooming him as a successor. When Manyavar Kanshi
    Ram was alive and running the party, Mayawati used to sit beside him,” said a BSP
    leader based in Uttar Pradesh.

    Kanshi Ram, the founder of BSP and Mayawati’s mentor, died in October 2006
    after suffering a heart attack. Following his death, Mayawati took charge of the
    party.

    She has since drawn attention to the succession question from time to time with
    a set of curious moves, beginning in 2008. In August that year, addressing a rally
    in Lucknow, she reportedly declared that she had chosen her successor, without
    revealing the name.

    “The successor I have chosen for myself is someone 18-20 years younger than me
    and hails from my own ‘chamar‘ community…But let me make it absolutely clear
    that he is not anyone belonging to my family,” Rediff quoted Mayawati as having
    said.

    She had added that the name will be disclosed in the event of her “sudden death”
    or if her “political adversaries succeed in their vicious game plan” of sending her
    https://theprint.in/politics/quasi-coronation-of-nephew-extra-sofa-on-mayawatis-dais-triggers-succession-buzz-in-bsp/1668233/ 2/5
    13/07/2023, 20:50 Extra sofa on Mayawati’s dais triggers succession buzz in BS

    to jail on trumped-up charges. Soon after, it emerged that she had appointed her
    personal aide Rajaram the party’s national vice-president — a post she occupied
    when Kanshi Ram was alive.

    Rajaram was subsequently elected to the Rajya Sabha where he completed two
    terms.

    Similarly, Manoj Kumar and R. Sridhar — both her personal attendants — were
    elevated to the posts of national secretaries between 2012 and 2016, triggering
    curiosity.

    Also Read: UCC can strengthen country, but BJP raising it to cover up its failures,
    says Mayawati

    Mayawati & the question of succession


    While the succession question was foregrounded by Mayawati herself in 2008,
    she has over the years largely avoided commenting on the issue.

    In 2021, making a rare intervention on the matter, she reiterated that her
    successor would be a Dalit whose name would be kept under wraps as long as she
    was fit to lead the party. “I am not going to be unfit anytime soon,” she had said.

    However, even as she refrained from making direct comments on the issue, the
    lengths to which Mayawati went to promote her nephew within the party has
    only cemented the perception that he was being groomed to lead the Bahujan
    Samaj Party in the future.

    Akash was first seen with Mayawati in April 2017, when his father Anand was
    appointed the BSP national vice-president.

    According to a BSP insider, she had then introduced Akash to party functionaries
    as someone who did his MBA from London and would help in the party’s smooth
    functioning. That year, he also accompanied her to Saharanpur in the aftermath
    of Thakur-Dalit clashes.

    Anand stepped down from the post of BSP vice-president in 2018 to counter
    allegations of nepotism, only to be reappointed in 2019, on the condition that he
    would never hold any public office or contest polls. Along with his appointment,
    Akash was made the BSP national coordinator, in what was considered a sign of
    things to come.

    While the BSP’s footprint has shrunk due to a series of electoral reverses — the
    party’s tally in the Uttar Pradesh assembly dropped from 206 in 2007 to 1 in 2022
    https://theprint.in/politics/quasi-coronation-of-nephew-extra-sofa-on-mayawatis-dais-triggers-succession-buzz-in-bsp/1668233/ 3/5
    13/07/2023, 20:50 Extra sofa on Mayawati’s dais triggers succession buzz in BS

    — Akash continues to hold the post.

    Last month, the 32-year-old was made the party’s election incharge of poll-bound
    Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana. Soon after the
    announcement, he tweeted his gratitude to Mayawati for ‘entrusting him with the
    important responsibility’.

    “As respected, Mayawati ji has said, we will contest the upcoming assembly
    elections on issues like exploitation of dalits, tribals and other backward classes
    at all levels, poverty, unemployment, price rise. Bahujan mission and movement is
    the duty of all of us, and with the faith with which I have been given the
    responsibility of this mission, I will maintain the same faith of the top leadership
    and all the workers,” he added.

    In the 2018 Rajasthan polls, six candidates contesting on BSP tickets won, while
    two emerged as winners in Chhattisgarh. The party drew a blank in Madhya
    Pradesh in 2018, where it bagged four seats in the 2013 polls.

    Despite its reduced presence in state assemblies, the BSP managed to send 10
    MPs to the Lok Sabha in 2019 — an improvement from 2014, when it failed to get
    any candidate elected, compared to 2009 when it bagged 21 seats.

    (Edited by Amrtansh Arora)

    Also Read: Mayawati has eyes on 2024. Gameplan behind ‘helping’ BJP in
    presidential election, UP bypoll

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    TAGS Bahujan Samaj Party BSP Kanshi Ram Mayawati

    https://theprint.in/politics/quasi-coronation-of-nephew-extra-sofa-on-mayawatis-dais-triggers-succession-buzz-in-bsp/1668233/ 4/5
    13/07/2023, 20:50 Extra sofa on Mayawati’s dais triggers succession buzz in BS

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