Before the scheduled meeting of the Bahujan Samaj Party on coming Sunday to review the party’s worst performance in the recent Lok Sabha polls, party supremo Mayawati is facing pressure from senior leaders to accommodate and give some big responsibility to her nephew Akash Anand.
A senior BSP leader claimed that Akash Anand’s removal from the key role sent a wrong message among the party cadre and voters and cited that the BSP candidates secured over 50,000 votes on 19 out of 26 constituencies, which is 73 per cent of the total Lok Sabha seats where was voting held till the third phase of elections.
In six of these 26 seats, the BSP candidates polled over one lakh votes.
Mayawati had removed Akash Anand as the party’s national coordinator on May 7, calling him immature after the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections. Akash’s campaign events were also cancelled.
The BSP leader claimed that the performance of the party deteriorated after Akash Anand was restricted from campaigning.
BSP candidates secured 50,000 votes in 25 constituencies, which is 39 per cent of the 64 Lok Sabha seats where polling was held after the third phase. The party secured over one lakh votes in 11 constituencies, which is 17 per cent of 64 seats which went to polls after the third phase.
Sources confirmed that in view of the increasing activism of Chandrashekhar of the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) after becoming an MP, the party leaders will will urge Behenji to make Akash the national coordinator again so that the youth of the deprived society can be connected to the party.
The sources confirmed that Mayawati can give Akash Anand an important responsibility in the party sooner or later, after the FIR registered for the controversial speech given by him in Sitapur during the elections is disposed of.
The sources further said that besides demanding a comeback of Akash Anand, after a series of setbacks, the BSP cadres are now also talking in hushed tones about the need for a change in leadership. The BSP leadership has stubbornly refused to hold any brainstorming session while the party’s vote share has touched rock bottom at 9.5 per cent in 2024 from 19.43 per cent in 2019. The BSP has won no seats in the Lok Sabha elections this time and is left with just one seat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly. Its status as a national party is also at risk.
This was the party's worst electoral performance since its inception in 1984. Not only did the BSP draw a blank in terms of seats, an initial review showed that the party candidates were not able to secure even the second spot in any of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies of Uttar Pradesh, a party insider disclosed.
“The party has been steadily tumbling down after the 2012 assembly polls but Mayawati is not bothered. There has been no discussion at any level in the party and everything – from crucial decisions about alliances to ticket distribution – is decided by her, except the blame for the defeat. If the BSP has to survive, there is a need to effect a change in the leadership at the earliest so that we can regain lost ground in the 2027 assembly elections,” said a former party coordinator.
A former BSP MLA said that the party leadership had forced a majority of the party leaders to seek options in other parties and had expelled the remaining leaders. “Today former BSP leaders like Lalji Varma, RK Chaudhary, Ram Shiromani, Babu Singh Kushwaha have been elected as Members of Parliament from the Samajwadi Party. Who drove them away from the BSP!” he said.
Meanwhile, sources said that Mayawati, along with making changes in the in-charges of major states, could also assign the responsibility of a post like the national coordinator to the party’s national vice-president Anand Kumar, father of Akash. The sources said that the day after the party’s result came to zero on June 4, Mayawati took a detailed report from the party’s national general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra on the reasons for the defeat and discussed it, but now a meeting of party office-bearers from across the country has been called on coming Sunday.
Mayawati had already given instructions to take action against the coordinators and district level officials of those areas where the party performed worse than before. Many coordinators and district presidents have also been removed from their posts.
Sources said that along with the party in-charges and office-bearers of other states, zonal, divisional coordinators and district presidents of Uttar Pradesh have also been called to Sunday’s meeting. The sources revealed that in the meeting, Mayawati will make a detailed review of the reasons for the party’s “very poor performance” and will also discuss the report given by the officials regarding the measures to rebuild the party. After the group meeting, the BSP chief will also hold a meeting with the office-bearers of different states. In the states where the party has performed worse than before, the in-charges will be removed.
In the states like Maharashtra, Haryana, where assembly elections are going to be held in the near future, there will be extensive changes in the team so that the party performs better than before in the assembly elections. It is worth mentioning that BSP can also lose the status of a national party if its performance is poor in the assembly elections of these states.
