New Delhi: Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has appointed her brother and nephew to plum leadership posts in the party. While this shouldn’t be surprising, the announcement has come merely a year after she announced that no family member of hers will hold party positions as she did not believe in political dynasties.
On Sunday, Mayawati appointed her brother Anand Kumar and his son Akash as BSP’s national vice-president and national coordinator — the party’s de-facto second and third in command, respectively.
A Lucknow meeting of BSP leaders from across the country this weekend arrived at the decision, reports said. According to a tweet by Mayawati, in which she decried media accounts which had allegedly reported untrue facts on her, the meeting took place for two and half hours and was followed by meetings with state leaders which went on late into the night.
On Monday, Mayawati also announced that her party would be contesting all future elections on its own, ruling out possibilities of future alliances with the Samajwadi Party.
This will not be Anand’s first time in the position. He had been appointed party vice-president after the 2017 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, but on May 26, 2018, at the BSP national convention in Lucknow, Mayawati announced that her brother had resigned from the post to counter allegations of nepotism, noted Indian Express in its report on the appointments.
At the May national convention, she had said that her brother’s appointment as vice-president was made so he could “look after paperwork”. In her address, she had also stressed that no close family member of hers would hold any post at any level of the organisation even after her death and can only assist as a “common worker” for the party.
However, in the run up to the 2019 polls, Mayawati had been keen to thrust Anand’s son, Akash, into increasingly visible roles. Not only was he credited with managing Mayawati’s newly minted Twitter account, the 24-year-old was also included in the party’s list of star campaigners submitted to the Election Commission.
Mayawati’s nephew Akash Anand (fourth from left) at a BSP-SP campaign rally. Photo: Twitter/@samajwadiparty
A Telegraph report from the time quoted BSP insiders who were surprised at the move, given Mayawati’s repeated stated aversion to dynasty politics. Akash, who has an MBA degree from London, was not only present on stage at Mayawati and Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh’s historic Mainpuri rally before the election, at an Agra campaign rally, reported The Hindu, he slipped effortlessly into the shoes of his aunt, who had been banned from campaigning for a period by the Election Commission.
On Sunday, the BSP also announced Danish Ali as leader of the BSP in Lok Sabha and named Girish Chandra the party whip.
Old tradition
Family members of key party leaders occupying positions of influence in those parties is, of course, no new occurrence in the Indian political landscape. The Congress’s noted dependence on the Gandhi family, whose scion Rahul is now reluctant to continue as party chief, has been the subject of numerous debates.
Within the BJP too, several prominent leaders including Vasundhara Raje and Maneka Gandhi have helped their sons into important positions.
In Uttar Pradesh itself, the reigns of the Samajwadi Party have slipped from Mulayam’s hands to his son Akhilesh’s, bypassing his brother Shivpal and several cousins who continue to get party tickets.
Also read: Lok Sabha Data Shows BJP Is Just as Dynastic as the Congress
In Andhra Pradesh, Telugu Desam Party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh was cabinet minister for information technology, panchayati raj and rural development, while across the border in Telangana, K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha recently fought the election from Nizamabad. KCR’s son, K.T. Rama Rao is the acting president of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi party founded by the Telangana chief minister.
In the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra too, Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule was a prominent MP and his nephew Ajit Pawar has assumed the role of the party’s new face now. In the same state, the Shiv Sena is raring to pitch Aditya, the son of Uddhav Thackeray (himself the son of Sena founder Bal Thackeray), as the deputy chief ministerial candidate come election time.
In Bihar, Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal was always a family affair, invoking images of Rabri Devi rushing to take over as chief minister the night her husband was arrested. Ram Vilas Paswan’s son Chirag has also been an enduring face of the party.
In neighbouring Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek is a Trinamool MP. In Meghalaya, the National People’s Party, founded by P.A. Sangma, now has as its head, his son and state chief minister, Conrad.