Rally, funds on Mayawati's birthday

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) plans to celebrate the 60th birthday of its president Mayawati with a massive rally in Lucknow on January 15.

In this rally, Ms Mayawati will give directions to her party cadres for the upcoming Assembly elections and warn them against rumours that will be spread by her rivals to check the BSP. Her birthday will also kick off the party’s fund collection drive even though no official announcement is being made for it this time.

It may be recalled that in 2008, an engineer — Manoj Gupta — was lynched by then BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari in Aurraiyya district when he refused to give money for Ms Mayawati’s birthday funds. Thereafter, the BSP had stopped officially collecting funds on the birthday of its president.

“We have been celebrating Behenji’s birthday as ‘Arthik Sahyog Diwas’ but we have also faced criticism for this. We do not have Ambanis and Adanis who will fund our elections so we are asking party cadres to contribute as much as they can because we need money to contest the 2017 Assembly elections,” said a former BSP minister.

Ms Mayawati is expected to return to Lucknow now that the Winter Session of Parliament is over and she will be discussing the preparedness of the party for elections with the BSP coordinators.

“She will make a seat-to-seat assessment and also zero in on candidates for each seat. She has already prepared a panel of candidates and the final decision will be taken by end of January,” the former minister said.