Mayawati’s nephew Akash Anand touches her feet.
Lucknow:
Akash Anand, nephew of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, is back. His aunt had removed him from a key position in the party a month ago. Today, he received her blessings by touching her feet after she appointed him national coordinator of the BSP and appointed him as her political successor.
Mayawati had benched her nephew while campaigning in the recently held Lok Sabha elections for his “aggressive” speeches, which led to a police case being filed against him. She had advised him to “grow up” until she would remain on the bench.
In the BSP’s first key meeting on Sunday after the Lok Sabha elections, Mayawati put the final seal on the June 21 decision to allow Anand to campaign for the BSP in the upcoming by-election for an assembly seat in the mountainous state of Uttarakhand.
Anand will also lead the BSP campaign in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections scheduled for 2027.
The BSP, which once ruled UP after a rapid and meteoric rise before disappearing as quickly as it had arrived, did not win a single seat in UP in the national elections. He came to power in 2007 in what was considered a huge success for his “social engineering” campaign. The following year, Time magazine called her “Queen of the Dalits.”
Mr Anand’s comment that the central government was a “government of terrorists” led to his expulsion from the BSP’s Lok Sabha election campaign. “This government is a government of bulldozers and a government of traitors. The party that leaves its youth hungry and enslaves its elderly is a terrorist government. The Taliban runs such a government in Afghanistan,” he had said during an election rally in Sitapur .
Today’s BSP post-election meeting mainly focused on why the party could not win a single seat in UP. Mayawati and her party leader discussed how they can improve their chances in the 2027 UP assembly elections.
Sources said Anand enjoys the support of BSP workers even though the party did not contest the Lok Sabha elections.