Having received a shot in the arm after Imran Masood joined the party, Bahujan Samaj Party has started preparations for the coming urban local bodies polls, hoping it to be a semi-final before the next parliamentary elections to be held in 2024.
While BSP supremo Mayawati is already reshuffling the organisation, she is also trying to integrate the Muslim society with her before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This is also believed to be the biggest reason behind Imran Masood’s entry into the BSP.
Mayawati has called a big meeting of party officials in Lucknow on November 22 in which a strategy will be chalked out for the UP civic elections.
The BSP is focusing especially on Muslim vote bank. This is the reason why Imran Masood was made the coordinator of western UP as soon as he joined the party. Through this message is being given that if anyone is the biggest beneficiary of Muslim society in UP, then it is BSP, not Samajwadi Party. Obviously, with this, the BSP will be preparing to break into the Muslim vote bank of the SP.
On the other hand, after Imran Masood's entry into BSP, now Jayant Chaudhary will also get a direct challenge in western UP. Till now the BSP did not see any big face against Jayant in the west. To dilute the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal impact in western UP, as soon as Masood came to BSP, Mayawati gave a big responsibility to him. Earlier also when SP made charges against BSP of being a B-team of Bharatiya Janata Party, Mayawati had fired back making similar allegations against the SP. She even went on to blame Muslims for making a big mistake in the last assembly election by voting for SP as Akhilesh had no strength to give any challenge to the BJP.
At regular intervals, Mayawati has tried to convince the Muslims that it is only BSP and not Congress or SP which can give a real fight to the BJP and can defeat it in the next election.