Mayawati Takes Nephew Akash Anand on a Roller Coaster Ride Over BSP Leadership

The love-hate relationship between the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati and her nephew and would-be political successor Akash Anand keeps getting more and more curious.Over the past one and a half years, Behenji has sent the 30-year-old Plymouth University MBA graduate on a bizarre roller coaster ride, elevating and humiliating him in the party several times, in rapid succession.Forced to play this snakes and ladders game, the hapless Anand, who had earlier been seen as an able successor to his legendary aunt with his fiery political rhetoric and dynamism reminiscent of Mayawati in her younger days, has lost considerable face in the BSP and its rapidly shrinking voter base. This is bound to impact his latest elevation as the chief national coordinator of the party as de-facto second in command to Behenji.The elevation comes just as a few months after he was first sacked as national coordinator and then expelled from the BSP for conniving with his father-in-law Ashok Siddharth, a veteran BSP leader to promote factionalism. How BSP's Family Drama is Eroding Mayawati's Influence in Dalit PoliticsLast year, a similar farce was enacted by Mayawati: first reward, then punish, and then once again reward her nephew. After creating political ripples on the eve of last year’s national elections by naming Anand as her political heir, she dramatically sacked him in the middle of the poll campaign as public chastisement for being extra aggressive against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).Within a few months, after delivering an abject apology, the young Dalit leader was back in the party and appointed in his earlier post as national coordinator.This year, the punishment followed by reward ritual by Behenji for her nephew, has actually resulted in a promotion for him as chief national coordinator supervising three national coordinators. They are all older and more experienced than him: Ramji Gautam, Raja Ram, and Randhir Beniwal. Interestingly, while Raja Ram was some years ago—before the rise of Anand—seen as a possible successor to Maywati, Ramji Gautam, a protégé of her close confidante and legal adviser Satish Mishra, had fought a factional battle with Anand’s father-in-law Siddharth Gautam that has resulted in the expulsion of the latter.While Anand has not just been rehabilitated but also promoted, his father-in-law remains expelled from the BSP.But interestingly, at the same national BSP meeting where Behenji announced her nephew’s return and elevation, she is reported to have gone out of her way in praising his wife Pragya for several minutes. She claimed Pragya was "like a fond daughter" and a bulwark of support for Anand. This gives a new familial twist in the workings of the BSP, which was openly against dynastic politics since its formation by Kanshi Ram, who kept his family completely away from the party.Mayawati’s Self-Destruction: The Rise and Fall of BSP 'Heir' Akash AnandWhile banishing Anand from the BSP last year as well as this year, Mayawati had lamented that he was too “immature” to be given responsibility. His initial response to her immediately after he was accused with his father in law for factional war in the party did not wash with his aunt who said in tweet on X “Anand’s lengthy response following his removal was neither a sign of remorse nor political wisdom but was instead driven by arrogance.” However last month, Akash offered a public apology to the BSP, saying he would “not take any advice from any relative or advisor” and only adhere to the “directives given by respected Behen ji”.He was taken back soon after and his appointment as chief coordinator announced this week.Today, I received the opportunity to attend the BSP’s all India meeting. All the office-bearers received guidance and necessary directions from respected Mayawati-ji to strengthen the party across the country. Respected Behenji has given me the responsibility of the post of chief national coordinator of the party. I express my heartfelt gratitude to respected Behenji. She has forgiven my mistakes and has given me an opportunity to contribute in strengthening the Bahujan mission and movement. I promise that I will work with complete devotion in the interest of the party and the movement, and will never disappoint her. I once again thank the respected Mayawatiji from the bottom of my heart.Akash Anand on XWhy Chandrashekhar Ravan Is Taking On Yogi in Latter's Home Turf GorakhpurAs the shadows close in on Behenji and the BSP, she is faced with an acute dilemma. She is aware that the only voters left with her now belong to the party’s core Jatav base, and even this is being severely eroded with every passing day. According to the CSDS Lokniti post poll survey of the Lok Sabha polls, only 44 percent of Jatavs voted for the BSP, a grievous blow to the prospects of the party retaining even a nominal presence in the state. The real problem facing Mayawati is that although the older sections of her former rock solid Jatav base is still blindly loyal to her, this is no longer true for the younger sections who are looking for fresh opportunities in the BJP, Congress, Samajwadi Party and particularly the Azad Samaj Party, led by the charismatic young Jatav leader Chandrasekhar Azad. Azad as got increasingly aggressive over the past year, poaching from the BSP's young Jatav cadres and voters, driven by Ambedkarite ideology and prone to see Behenji as yesterday’s leader, now reduced to splitting the Dalit vote to help the BJP. This is the main reason for the BSP supremo to repeatedly bring back a young leader like Akash Anand to the forefront, hoping that she can still through him cling on to the younger Dalits who are defecting her party in droves. At the same time, Behenji remains a megalomaniac, unable to delegate powers to anyone in the party, including her nephew, repeatedly cutting him to size as soon as he tries to show independent initiative or directly interfere in party affairs.This tussle between the need for the BSP to reinvent itself and its supremo’s reluctance of sharing power is likely to only hasten the fading of the once formidable political behemoth.(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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Mayawati Takes Nephew Akash Anand on a Roller Coaster Ride Over BSP Leadership

Behenji's flip-flops over naming Anand as her political heir have dented the young leader's reputation within BSP.

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Topics: Mayawati Bahujan Samajwadi Party Akash Anand