A trouble shared is a trouble halved and Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati, perhaps, believed in this when she announced her youngest brother Anand Kumar as her successor last week.
Mr Kumar has never been heard and even lesser seen in the BSP in Uttar Pradesh. His sole claim to fame — apart from the fact that he is Ms Mayawati’s brother — are the tax controversies that have started hounding him since December 2016.
Mr Kumar, a pleasantly plump young man in his early forties, first came into public eye in 2007 when he and his family attended the swearing-in of Ms Mayawati as chief minister in Lucknow.
His daughter was seen prancing on stage and Ms Mayawati could be seen talking to her — the only visual, perhaps, that showed the BSP president in a family mood.
Till then, Ms Mayawati had kept her family at an arm’s length and even when her parents visited Lucknow, they were made to stay at a five-star hotel and not at her official residence. Later, in one of her press conferences, the BSP president said that when the CBI hounded her in the Taj Corridor scam, her other brother, Siddhartha Kumar, had deserted her, but it was Anand Kumar who stood by her during those times.
Insiders in the BSP say that between 2003 and 2007 when Kanshi Ram’s health started deteriorating and the CBI mounted pressure on Ms Mayawati, she found herself “miserably alone”.
“Mayawati is basically insecure and does not trust anyone. However, in those years of crisis, she found Anand by her side and gradually began trusting him,” says a former BSP leader.
“Since he is not overbearing and prefers to remain docile, her trust increased and she became closer to him, compared to other siblings.”
According to reports, Mr Kumar started his career as a clerk in Noida Authority and stayed in Delhi, but after 2007, he forayed into business.
Mr Kumar and his wife Vichitra Lata’s fortunes started rising after 2007 when the BSP was in power in UP.
In 2011, BJP leader Kirit Somaiya released a list of 26 bogus companies allegedly linked to Mr Kumar. The BJP leader said Mr Kumar had parked thousand of crores in shell companies.
Kirit Somaiya even released a list of 26 firms linked with dubious transactions, investments and dealings at Noida.
During the period between 2007 and 2012, when Ms Mayawati was UP chief minister, Mr Kumar was never seen in the corridors of power. Though there were murmurs of his proximity with certain bureaucrats during this period, there was no evidence of the same. He shied away from the media and refused all interaction.
Mr Kumar has, in recent weeks, been under the scanner of the income-tax department and the enforcement directorate after Rs 104 crore, said to be BSP money, was deposited in his bank account following demonetisation.
He is the owner of 12 companies and his worth is said to be Rs 1,316 crore — Rs 440 crore in cash and Rs 870 crore in fixed assets.
Mr Kumar, interestingly, was not even the primary member of the BSP and party leaders had almost no interaction with him till his elevation as BSP vice-president was announced on Ambedkar Jayanti this year.
Ms Mayawati allo-wed him to take care of party matters in her abs-ence, albeit, on the condition th-at he would never become MP, MLA or minister.
Ms Mayawati said that Mr Ku-mar will be based in Delhi and look after party affairs in her absence. “There are times when party functionaries need my approval for party-rel-ated things and I am not present in Delhi. Anand will now take care of that,” she said.
As per the BSP statute, the vice-president is the second-most powerful person in the party after the president herself.
The post has been lying vacant after Ms Mayawati sacked MP Raja Ram two years ago. Mr Kumar will now be higher in the pecking order than Rajya Sa-bha MP S.C. Misra and senior leader Naseemudd-in Siddiqui, both of whom are general secretaries.
After three consecutive defeats in elections in 2012, 2014 and 2017, the BSP president has apparently realised that she needed to project a second rung dalit leadership if she wanted to regain lost ground among dalits.
The non-dalit leaders like S.C. Misra and Naseemuddin Siddiqui were obviously not acceptable in a party that banks heavily on dalit support.
Political observers feel that Mr Kumar’s appointment is a major step taken by Ms Mayawati toward developing up a second line of dalit leadership in the party and also anointing him as her heir apparent. BSP leaders, on condition of anonymity, feel that Mr Kumar would be more of a liability than an asset for the party.
“His financial dealings are under scanner and he should have washed off the taint before entering politics,” a BSP MLA says.
Others believe that Ms Mayawati has given him a political position only to insulate him against possible action on his business dealings from the Nare-ndra Modi government.
“Any action against Anand Kumar will now be termed as political vendetta since he is the party vice-president and this will also help him develop his own political clout in Delhi,” a party source says.
However, his acceptability in the party and in politics remains to be seen. There is palpable resentment in a section of the party leaders over his elevation.
Party leaders feel that the BSP is going the SP way and there is no future for them in the party. On April 19, Mr Kumar attended a party meeting with Ms Mayawati but did not make any speech.
