EX-BSP men eye anti-Mayawati front

Lucknow: Expelled leaders from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are making an effort to come together and form an alliance that will dislodge Ms Mayawati form the position of being the sole custodian of Dalit votes in politics. The Federation of the Bahujan Organisations of India, led by former BSP MP Pramod Kureel, is taking the initiative and all former BSP leaders have been invited to join.

The idea is to thwart the chances of the BSP’s revival under the leadership of Ms Mayawati and preserve the ideology of Dr B.R. Ambedkar and late Kanshi Ram. The Rashtriya Bahujan Manch, floated by Mr Naseemuddin Siddiqui who was expelled from the BSP in May, will also be a part of the new alliance.

According to Mr Kureel, the basic idea is to bring together various former BSP leaders and other Bahujan ideology-based social groups to create a strong political alternative. He said Ms Mayawati had strayed from the path of the Bahujan movement and was on her way to becoming a spent force in politics. 

“There is a vacuum in Dalit politics and we want to fill that space”, he said. He added that it was a matter of great concern that all old timers in the BSP were either leaving the party or were being thrown out. “Ms Mayawati has outlived her political supremacy amongst the Dalits. The debacle in the Lok Sabha elections and then in the UP assembly elections have only exposed the chinks in her political armor”, he said.

Interestingly, the initiative is also being supported by the president of Maharashtra-based Bahujan Republican Socialist Party, Suresh Mane. Another Dalit leader and former BSP minister R K Chaudhary who now heads the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4), has also been invited to join the new alliance.