After the exit of Leader of the Opposition in the UP Assembly and senior OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya from the Bahujan Samaj Party on Wednesday, the BSP may now witness the exodus of over 20 legisla
After the exit of Leader of the Opposition in the UP Assembly and senior OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya from the Bahujan Samaj Party on Wednesday, the BSP may now witness the exodus of over 20 legislators in the coming weeks.
According to reliable sources, a number of party legislators are preparing to desert the BSP and most of them are either dalits or OBCs.
Mr Maurya enjoyed a good rapport with party MLAs as leader of the BSP Legislature Party. “We had been talking to Mr Maurya about the growing domination of non-dalits and non-OBCs in the party and he told us to be patient. Now that he has exited, we are also finalising our options,” said one such BSP MLA.
Most of the legislators on Thursday admitted feeling “stifled and suffocated” but continued to remain in the BSP because of the dalit support in their constituencies. “Now that Jatavs are moving away from the BSP to a large extent, there is no point is remaining in the party,” said a BSP MLA.
Mr Maurya not only had built up a good following in the party but also among OBCs; his exit will take away a large portion of dalit and OBC votes.
With Mr Maurya’s exit, the list of Kanshi Ram followers in the BSP has shrunk to about half a dozen. The fact that Ms Mayawati’s closest aides today — Mr Satish Chandra Misra and Mr Naseemuddin Siddiqui — are non-dalits seems to be troubling the party’s core vote base.
In the past decade, Ms Mayawati has shown the door to the majority of Kanshi Ram loyalists, including Raj Bahadur, Deenanath Bhaskar and Daddu Prasad. She has also been frequently thro-wing out Muslim leaders.
Jugal Kishore, Dr Masood, Jung Bahadur Patel, Ram Lakhan Varma, Bhagwat Pal and Babu Singh Kushwaha.
