The announcement was made at a closed-door all-India meeting of senior party functionaries at the party’s headquarters in Lucknow, party leaders said even though the BSP chief refrained from making a public announcement. She reiterated her stand to go it alone for the 2024 general elections.
“Behen ji declared Akash Anand to be her successor. He will work in states where the party is weak, apart from UP and Uttarakhand,” BSP leader Udayveer Singh told media persons outside the party office.
Akash (28), son of Mayawati’s brother Anand Kumar, is already the party’s national coordinator and was for long seen as a probable successor. He was in charge of the party in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana, which saw state elections recently. BSP’s vote share in all four states declined much like in UP, the party’s nerve centre.
While BSP had won seats in MP and Chhattisgarh in 2018, this time, it only won two seats in Rajasthan. This has also signalled an urgent need to strengthen the organisations in these and other states to maintain the BSP’s national party status.
Akash is likely to be tasked to rope in more youth into the party folds. Party functionaries from Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra – states which will see elections next year – have also been asked to report to Akash, party sources said, even though they wondered if he will have a say in deciding tickets for elections.
London-educated Akash learnt the ropes of the organisation since the 2017 UP assembly elections when he accompanied his aunt on several poll campaigns. In 2019, soon after the general elections, he was appointed the party’s national coordinator. In the recently-held state elections, Anand took out ‘padyatras’ in Rajasthan covering 3,500 km, introducing a new concept to the party, sources said.
In Madhya Pradesh, Anand led a peaceful march to the Raj Bhavan in Bhopal, to protest against atrocities directed at Dalits and tribals on The International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, again a feature uncharacteristic of the BSP.
Akash has also been working to increase the party’s presence on social media and has also been a votary of dialogues between workers and the BSP supremo who is known not to mingle with leaders much, as is evident from his social media posts.
“He is building an experience and I am sure with his youth image and new way of seeing things, he will take the movement to greater heights,” Ritesh Pandey, BSP MP told ET.
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