Mayawati: Of Expulsions & Discontent: What’s Ailing Mayawati’s Bsp? | Lucknow News

LUCKNOW: Since June 2023, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has expelled three of its leaders, Prashant Gautam, Imran Masood and Dharamveer Chaudhary, all for indiscipline and anti-party activities. Sources said this has bred discontent among the party cadre.
The party has many ills plaguing it, said party insiders, adding that expelling leaders on “whimsical grounds” is one. Since 2016, the party has expelled many leaders for indiscipline and anti-party acts.
Chaudhary, a Jat leader from Ghaziabad, who had been in the party for 27 long years, was expelled for participating in media and TV debates on behalf of the party. Imran Masood, an influential Muslim leader from Saharanpur, who was inducted in the party with much fanfare by Mayawati herself in October last year, was expelled after he heaped praises on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Gautam, a senior leader from Meerut, on the other hand, had written an open letter to Mayawati, after the party’s rout in the May ULB polls in UP, saying that she should have campaigned for the party leaders, much like CM Yogi Adityanath and SP national president Akhilesh Yadav.
Swamy Prasad Maurya, RK Chaudhary, Indrajeet Saroj, Brijlal Khabri, Thakur Jaiveer Singh, SP Singh Baghel, Brijesh Pathak, Dharam Singh Saini, Ram Achal Rajbhar, Lalji Verma, Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Ramveer Upadhyay and Nakul Dubey are some of the other leaders shown the door. Today, the party is left with no prominent leaders from many caste groups given the reckless expulsions, insiders said.
According to them, party supremo Mayawati has a coterie of “consultants”, men whom she trusts for running the party organization, and that she is not the leader who has her own ears to the ground. This keeps her away from the first-hand feedback on the party on many occasions, they said.
The latest controversy surrounding the party’s Amroha MP, Danish Ali, is a case in point. A section of the leaders is already questioning the way the party reacted to the controversial remarks made against him by BJP PM Ramesh Bidhuri in Parliament. Mayawati had just posted a mild comment on X following the controversy. No senior BSP leader met Ali, like Rahul Gandhi did.
Mayawati deciding to stay away from alliances for Lok Sabha elections has already made people in her party hunt for greener pastures. That may lead to a few more expulsions in days to come, said a party functionary.