Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders on December 10 said the party chief and former four-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati declared her nephew Akash Anand as her heir apparent. The announcement was reportedly made during an all-India meeting of the party held in Lucknow to discuss about preparation strategy for the coming parliamentary elections. However, the party has not made any official declaration.
Mr. Anand, 28, the son of Ms. Mayawati’s younger brother Anand Kumar, was dubbed by many in political circles of Uttar Pradesh to succeed the former Chief Minister sooner or later in the BSP since he was made the National Coordinator of the party in 2019 and his role in the party affairs growing continuously. In his first responsibility, Mr. Anand, an MBA pass out from the United Kingdom, was entrusted with reaching out to the younger generation, primarily the Dalit youths, who were considered moving away from the party since 2014, when the BJP bounced back in the State, making inroads across castes and communities.
“Akash arrived in the political horizon of Uttar Pradesh amid a chaos in Dalits, when the BSP caste calculus decimated after 2017 and a potential challenger arriving to capitalise on Dalit aspirations in the form of Chandrashekhar Azad,” said Asad Rizvi, political analyst based in Lucknow.
