Mayawati rejigs party, curtails powers of trusted aides
The BSP had earlier said that she was ready for any alliance to defeat the BJP.
Lucknow: In a major decision, BSP president Mayawati has packed off her trusted lieutenant Naseemuddin Siddiqui to Madhya Pradesh where he will prepare the party for the next Assembly elections in the state.
Mr Siddiqui, till now, was in charge of Uttar Pradesh and was one of the top leaders of the party after Ms Mayawati.
The BSP president, after a late night meeting on Wednesday, also disbanded that existing team of zonal, division and district coordinators.
Party workers had been complaining of high-handedness and extortion by coordinators and their role in the recent Assembly elections had been under cloud.
Ms Mayawati, in another significant move, has also dissolved the bhaichara committees that had been formed to bring other caste groups closer to the BSP. These committees were formed to woo Brahmins, Thakurs and Muslims and Mr Satish Chandra Misra was in charge of these committees.
Instead, she has appointed two committees comprising mainly dalits, most backward class and Muslim leaders to broaden the party’s base in Uttar Pradesh.
BSP MP Ashok Siddhartha, MLC Sunil Chittor and Naushad Ali are among the members.
Former MLAs Nakul Dubey and Anant Misra have been given charge of Lucknow and Kanpur respectively for the upcoming mayoral polls.
Ms Mayawati’s organisational rejig and her decision to clip the wings of top leaders is being seen as a move designed to make the path smoother for her brother Anand Kumar who was introduced to party workers on Wednesday.
Ms Mayawati, sources said, had realised that the growing importance of non-dalit leaders in the party was largely responsible for the desertion by dalits in the recent elections.
In another significant move, the BSP president has announced that she would take a decision on an alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls at the “appropriate time and the alliance will happen only if BSP gets the number of seats it deserves”.
The BSP had earlier said that she was ready for any alliance to defeat the BJP.