Bahujan Samaj Party national president Mayawati, on Sunday, appointed three chief coordinators and dissolved the entire executive body of the party in Uttar Pradesh. She also gave a big responsibility to her nephew Akash Anand, making him the national coordinator of the BSP.
Reviewing the reasons for the humiliating defeat of the party here on Sunday, Mayawati dissolved the entire executive body of the Uttar Pradesh unit except for removing the state president and district presidents.
She appointed three chief coordinators for Uttar Pradesh.
In a statement, Mayawati said the party had decided to retain its state president Bhim Rajbhar and had appointed three state coordinators — former Meerut MP Munkad Ali, former Azamgarh MLC Vijay Pratap and Rajkumar Gautam of Bulandshahr.
The State coordinators will visit all 18 divisions in the state to examine the party's influence in those regions and give Mayawati their feedback, the statement said.
The BSP chief said her objective was to strengthen the party and for this, she had made Akash Anand, her nephew, the party's national coordinator.
Along with this, she also made former leader of the BSP Legislature Party, Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali, the BSP candidate in the Azamgarh Lok Sabha by-election.
Guddu Jamali was the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen candidate from Mubarakpur in Azamgarh in the assembly elections and was the only AIMIM candidate who did not lose his security and was runner-up with Samajwadi Party winning the seat.
Jamali, a BSP MLA between 2017 and 2022, also held the position of its legislature party leader in the last Uttar Pradesh Assembly but was sacked shortly before polls. He returned to BSP recently.
In the meeting, Mayawati reviewed the election results and said that all the workers should get involved whole heartedly in further preparations. She also said that those working in the organisation would be promoted and alerted the inactive workers.
Mayawati also called 402 party candidates who lost the election in the meeting to review the defeat. Sector in-charge, district president, BAMCEF and brotherhood committee convener were also present in the meeting at the BSP state office held under the chairmanship of Mayawati.
The strategy for the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 was also decided in the meeting. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BSP fought in alliance with the SP and won 10 seats.
On March 11, Mayawati had admitted that her party's rout in the Uttar Pradesh assembly election was a "lesson". However, the BSP supremo had asked party workers to not feel discouraged, promising to make a
comeback.
"We should learn from it, introspect, and carry forward our party movement, and come back to power," Mayawati had said.
"Before 2017, Bharatiya Janata Party did not have a good stake in Uttar Pradesh. Likewise, today, Congress is also undergoing the same phase as BJP... UP election result is a lesson for us to continue putting in efforts," she said.
In the 2022 UP Assembly elections, the BSP could win only one seat out of 403 assembly seats in the state. After this humiliating performance, political pundits say that the BSP is almost over. A large part of the BSP vote bank has also shifted to BJP and other parties.
The BSP, which formed the government in Uttar Pradesh with 206 seats in 2007, got 80 seats in 2012 and 19 in 2017. After this the party got only one seat in 2022. In this election, BSP’s vote percentage has also come down to 13 per cent. The ever-decreasing graph of BSP is becoming a cause of great concern for party chief Mayawati.