BSP President Mayawati Seeks New Leaders To Fill Departure Void And Expand Caste Representation

Since 2016, the BSP has experienced the loss of numerous second-tier leaders, leading to a decline in sustainable leadership and representation of various caste groups, including Pasi, Kurmis, and Kushwaha-Maurya.

Instead of expecting the return of these departed leaders or their re-induction by Mayawati, the BSP plans to fill the gaps internally. Party members will actively seek out potential leaders at all levels and provide them with the necessary grooming and training. The party may also consider recruiting leaders from outside to address the leadership vacuum. It should be noted that ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, several prominent leaders left the BSP.

OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya resigned in June 2016, followed by another veteran leader R K Chaudhary a month later. Chaudhary was a prominent leader of the Pasi community, which is the second-largest Scheduled Caste (SC) community in Uttar Pradesh. The expulsions continued with the removal of influential Pasi leader Indrajit Saroj in August 2017.

These expulsions significantly affected the party's voter base and caused concerns among leaders, leaving voters in disbelief. The functionary added that “We need active leaders to reach out to these Dalit and OBC communities to bring them back to us.”

Unfortunately, the leaders expelled by the BSP constituted a strong second line of leadership. Many of these leaders have since assumed important positions in other parties and play a significant role in promoting Dalit and OBC politics elsewhere. Brijlal Khabri, who left the BSP in October 2016, is now leading the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh, while Thakur Jaiveer Singh and SP Singh Baghel, who were previously with the BSP, are now ministers in the BJP government. Additionally, Brijesh Pathak, a key figure in BSP's social engineering experiment in 2007, is now the deputy chief minister of the BJP government.

Sources within the BSP revealed that at least a dozen of our former leaders are part of the Yogi government. Their presence has made a considerable impact on the party, especially in western Uttar Pradesh, as many of these leaders held significant influence in the region, like our former MP Narendra Kashyap, who joined the BJP.

Furthermore, BSP's second-in-command, Satish Chandra Mishra, has been conspicuously absent for several months, and there has been no official information regarding his current status within the party. Given this situation, the BSP is currently lacking effective leadership, with Mayawati remaining unavailable and inaccessible to party cadres.