The expulsion of three senior Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders, including the former State President CP Singh by BSP supremo Mayawati, is being linked with the possible return of former MlA and Haridwar strongman Mohammad Shahjad into the party fold. On Thursday, CP Singh, Chaudhary Mahipal, Surendra Saini and Vijay Singh were expelled from the party. Interestingly the party had declared the candidature of Mahipal, Saini and Vijay Singh from luxar, Kaliyar and Jharbera assembly seats respectably for the Vidhan Sabha elections scheduled for 2017.
Political circles are rife with speculation that these leaders paid price for leaking the information based on which brother of Mohammad Shahjad was caught with a huge sum at Bareilly in UP recently. The money was reportedly being taken to some top BSP leader to ensure entry of Shahjad in the party.
When contacted the newly coronated State President of the party Satish Kumar refused to comment anything on the issue. The political observers however are of the opinion that the party is in a phase of reorganization and many more leaders could be expelled from the party. The party could see entry of many old faces also which the new President is intending to reclaim the old base of the party in the state. The first test of the newly appointed president would be three tier Panchayat elections in its strong hold of Haridwar district. It is worth mentioning here that the vote share of the party is dwindling in U’khand as it recorded its worst performance in the lS polls last year with a vote share of mere 4.71 pc. The party got 6.77 pc votes in the lS polls of 2004 and impressed everyone with 15.2 pc vote share in the general polls of 2009.