In a departure from its usual strategy of not organising padayatras and demonstrations, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Wednesday launched a 14-day “‘Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay’ Sankalp Yatra” led by party chief Mayawati’s nephew Akash Anand. Both the long padayatra and Akash’s public role signal a shift in the party’s strategy ahead of the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, which will be held later this year, and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Anand who is seen in party circles as Mayawati’s political heir has virtually been in charge of the party’s affairs in Rajasthan since last year when he toured the state to gain an understanding of the party’s organisational strength and participated in a 13-km yatra in Alwar on the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar. Officially the BSP’s national coordinator, Akash will address the yatra at different points as it travels across 100 Assembly constituencies, covering 3,000 km in the next couple of weeks. The constituencies include the six seats that the party won in 2018 — all of its MLAs later joined the Congress — and nine seats where its candidates finished runners-up. The yatra, which began from Dholpur, will conclude in Jaipur on August 29. “The yatra started with a rally and will travel through 33 districts. Akash Anand started the yatra and he will join it further at different locations,” said state BSP president Bhagwan Singh Baba. In Dholpur, Akash took aim at the Congress. “The Congress government of Rajasthan is anti-social. The Congress government promised that Rs 3,500 dearness allowance will be given to the unemployed youth, employment to lakhs of youths, cheaper gas cylinders to the poor, and free education to women. None of the promises have been fulfilled yet. Once again, the election results are around the corner. Congress leader will once again make promises among you. Beware of those false promises,” he said. He added, “I have come to warn you — whether it is the Congress or the BJP, both are the same. In 2014, people were cheated for votes. Today, the country is facing the brunt of unemployment and inflation. Those who before 2014 used to go out on the roads on rising gas cylinders, today they have no remorse for rising petrol prices.” And not just Rajasthan. Akash is also playing a crucial role for the BSP in the other poll-bound states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana. In June, Mayawati deployed him and Ramji Gautam, the central coordinator for these states and a Rajya Sabha MP, to prepare and launch the part’s election campaign on issues concerning Dalits, religious minorities, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and tribals. On August 9, Akash led a foot march in Bhopal and led an attempt to gherao the Raj Bhavan, raising the issues of the marginalised, said the BSP’s MP state president Ramakant Pippal. The party has already announced candidates for seven Assembly constituencies. Pippal said Akash had frequently travelled to different parts of the state in the past few months to hold organisational meetings. He is acting as a link between his aunt and the state BSP unit, passing on her directives and overseeing their implementation. Pippal said that on Akash’s directions, he went on a yatra in 80 Assembly seats from April 26 to August 1. “Behenji (Mayawati) is looking after the organisational affairs and drawing strategy by camping in Lucknow and Delhi. She will travel during the elections only. Before polls, Akash is leading the campaign and reviewing the preparations in these states. In his leadership, BSP has started hitting the streets too,” said a BSP leader. The urgency in the BSP’s political activities is also linked to its desire to increase its vote share in different states to that it can maintain its national party status. Absence of a protest culture The BSP under Mayawati’s leadership has avoided hitting the streets, including her four terms in power. The last time it hit the streets was in July 2016 in Lucknow when it demanded the arrest of BJP leader Dayashankar Singh over his allegedly objectionable remarks about the BSP chief. At the time, the party’s national general secretary Naseemuddin Siddiqui led the protests. Siddiqui is now in Congress while Singh is a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government. Following the party’s debacle in the UP Assembly elections last year, Mayawati told workers to avoid sit-ins and public protests. At the party’s first organisational meeting since the defeat, the BSP chief instructed party workers to keep helping victims of atrocities. “But you do not have to stage dharna and demonstrations,” she said. According to BSP insiders, Mayawati is grooming Akash for the long run. After the UP Assembly polls, she told the cadre that she would send Akash to different parts of UP to collect “truthful progress reports of work done by the party” and encourage youth workers. Akash is the son of Mayawati’s brother Anand Kumar. Both of them were introduced to party workers in September 2017, a few months after the BJP came to power in the state after registering a massive victory in an election in which the BSP finished third with 19 seats. Akash became more active politically in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election and was credited with bringing his aunt over to Twitter (now known as X). In 2019, a day after the Election Commission banned Mayawati from campaigning for 48 hours, Akash took to the stage and addressed his first rally, urging people to vote for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and then RLD president Ajit Singh also joined him on stage. A few weeks after the alliance’s defeat, Mayawati appointed him the party’s national coordinator and tasked him with reaching out to the youth, especially those from the Dalit community, and bringing them into the BSP fold.
