Amid mounting pressure for reinstating Akash Anand and giving him some assignment, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Sunday once again announced her nephew her political successor and also appointed him as the national coordinator of the party.

The appointment of Akash Anand is seen as a major development after the worst ever defeat of the BSP in the recent Lok Sabha elections in which the party once again failed to open its account, the same performance it witnessed in 2014 (RPT 2014)  but with much higher percentage of votes.

The BSP supremo and former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati, took the decision to reinstate Akash Anand during a meeting called to review the party’s defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. All the district-level office-bearers, senior party leaders and workers of the state attended the crucial meeting called in Lucknow on Sunday.The meeting mainly focused on why the party could not win even a single seat in the general election in the country. Discussions were also held on how things could improve in the 2027 UP assembly elections. Party leaders and officials from across the country, including BSP coordinators and district presidents in Uttar Pradesh, attended the meeting.Akash Anand, who also attended the meeting with his father Anand Kumar and BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, touched the feet of his aunt Mayawati and sought her blessings before the meeting started.  Mishra, who prepared a report on the reasons for the party’s defeat, handed it over to Mayawati for further necessary action.Akash Anand was first made the national coordinator to set up Mayawati’s organisation and campaign for the elections and after this, on December 10, 2023, the BSP supremo made him her political successor.Akash Anand started active politics and campaigned vigorously in the Lok Sabha elections, but in the midst of the polls, on May 7, 2024, Mayawati removed him not only from the post of party’s national coordinator, but also as her successor. He was also described as politically immature.Earlier on Saturday, Akash Anand was made the party’s star campaigner for the by-election to be held in Uttarakhand. Assembly by-elections are going to be held in Punjab and Uttarakhand. The BSP released a list of its 13 star campaigners for the bypolls in which the name of BSP chief Mayawati is at number one and the name of Akash Anand is at number two. From this, it was guessed that Akash Anand had once again entered active politics. At present, only Mayawati knows how much Akash Anand has matured politically in the last one and a half months. Akash Anand will be seen campaigning not only in UP but also in different states of the country as the young face of the party. This means that Mayawati is seeing a political future in Akash Anand and he can be the face of BSP in the future. In the meeting of BSP’s national office-bearers, Mayawati also decided to reduce the party’s membership fee from Rs 200 to Rs 50.Notably, Congress, which fought the Lok Sabha polls in UP in alliance with the Samajwadi Party and is part of the INDIA bloc, won six seats in the state. Collectively, the opposition INDIA bloc has won 43 seats in UP. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which was locked in a tense competition with the SP, managed to bag only 33 seats, thus marking a steep decline compared to its 2019 UP tally of 63 seats.