A day before the review meeting to assess the reasons for the recent debacle in the urban local bodies polls in the state, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Wednesday expelled former minister Prashant Gautam from the party.
Action against Gautam, party’s former divisional incharge of Meerut, was taken as BSP had won the mayoral election in Meerut last time but in the present polls, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) of blocked Asaduddin Owaisi the path of the BSP, especially in Meerut and remained runner-up, pushing Mayawati’s outfit to fourth place.
To give a strong message before the review meeting called here on Thursday, Mayawati removed Gautam from the party. Gautam has been held guilty of anti-party activities and indiscipline.
It is clear from this action that Mayawati is not going to tolerate even party old loyalists if they do not work with full devotion and dedication to keep intact at least the party’s traditional Dalit vote bank which is rapidly slipping out, pushing the party to fourth position.
It may be mentioned that in the 2017 civic elections, Sunita Verma became the mayor of Meerut on a BSP ticket. The BSP got about 2.38 lakh votes and with the help of Dalit-Muslim alliance, the party won the seat.
On the other hand, in 2023, the BSP’s graph fell and the Dalit-Muslim alliance disintegrated to such an extent that far from winning, party candidate Hashmat Malik’s deposit was forfeited. BSP got only 54,000 votes and reached the fourth position from the first. Not only this, in the year 2017, 25 municipal councilors of BSP had won, but this time this number has reduced to only six in Meerut.
Mayawati is angry as despite giving 11 out of 16 mayoral tickets to Muslims, the community did not vote for her party and instead supported Owaisi’s AIMIM, which reached the second position in Meerut and also damaged the prospect of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress, facilitating victory of Bharatiya Janata Party candidates by splitting the Muslim votes.
Interestingly, after being expelled from BSP, Gautam told some media persons that he had sent his resignation letter last Monday after finding the morale of the party workers low due to the style of functioning of party supremo Mayawati. He said that a prominent leader of the area, former MLA Yogesh Verma, was also now in SP instead of BSP and this also badly affected the BSP’s chances in Meerut.