Akash Anand to spearhead BSP’s poll push with Mayawati, picks Bhim Army chief turf for launch

Mayawati will launch her party’s national campaign from Haridwar, a key Hindu pilgrimage centre, in Uttarakhand on April 13.

The Nagina seat is dominated by the Muslim and Dalit communities, which respectively make up about 40% and 20% of its population. The constituency’s other communities, among others, include Thakurs, Jats, Chauhan Rajputs, Tyagis and Banias.

In the 2019 elections, the BSP’s Girish Chandra had defeated the BJP’s Yashwant Singh by 1.66 lakh votes. Then BSP had then fought the polls in an alliance with the SP.

The entry of Aazad into the Nagina fray has made the contest more challenging for the BSP, which has replaced Girish with a new candidate Surendra Pal Singh.

Aazad, 36, is banking on his popularity among the Dalit and Muslim voters, especially the Dalit youths. He has been actively making his public outreach in the Nagina belt for a long time.

Aazad had earlier been hopeful of sealing a deal with the INDIA bloc, eyeing his Nagina debut as the Opposition bloc’s joint candidate. However, Akhilesh Yadav-led SP, the INDIA alliance’s dominant partner in UP, denied the seat to him, fielding instead its own candidate.

“Akash is more popular than Chandrashekhar among youths. Akash’s campaign will get more youths connected with BSP in Nagina,” claimed Surendra Pal Singh.

Another BSP leader however said, “Chandrashekhar is second most popular Dalit leader after Mayawati in UP. And the advantage with him is that he is a young leader. By deploying Akash in canvassing will help the BSP in attracting Dalit youths who are shifting to either BJP or Chandrashekhar.”

In Nagina, the BJP has fielded Om Kumar, its Nehtaur MLA, while the SP has nominated a retired additional district judge Manoj Kumar.

With many of its founding members and key leaders belonging to the Dalit, Muslim and OBC communities having left its fold amid its continued electoral setbacks, the BSP is banking on Mayawati and Akash as its star campaigners not just in UP but in other states too.

On April 14, Mayawati will start her campaign in UP, addressing a rally in Deoband, where the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband is located. On the same day, she will address another rally in Muzaffarnagar dominated by Muslims and Jats. Over the next two days, she will canvass in Moradabad and Bijnor.

BSP sources said Akash would address at least 25 rallies in UP and other states – which would include joint rallies with Mayawati as well as solo meetings. For the first and second phase polls, he would address rallies in Khurja, Bulandshahr, Bareilly, Mathura, Agra, Aligarh, Hathras and Saharanpur over the next fortnight in UP.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BSP won 10 seats of the 38 it contested out of the state’s 80 seats. The party’s then ally SP won 5 seats after contesting 37 seats.

In the elections to the 403-member UP Assembly in 2022, when the BSP went solo, it failed to open its account.

Disappointed with the BSP’s decline over the years, its rank and file is hoping that Akash would rejuvenate the party.

Another challenge that the BSP faces is the lack of key Muslim leaders in its ranks, even though the party’s envisaged social coalition depends on the support of the minority community along with its core base Dalits.

However, except ex-MP Munkad Ali, the BSP does not have any prominent minority face now, who could be at the forefront of its campaigning. It has lost leaders like Nasimuddin Siddiqui, Imran Masood and Danish Ali to the Congress in recent years. Imran and Danish are contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Saharanpur and Amroha respectively.

The BSP had once tried its outreach to Brahmins too, but it has now only Satish Mishra as its campaigner from the community. The party’s young Brahmin face and Ambedkar Nagar MP Ritesh Pandey recently switched to the BJP, which has now fielded him from the same seat.