Lalganj/Varanasi/Lucknow: At first, Akash Anand might have come across as a low-key campaigner, but the next-generation Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader seems to have blossomed into a fiery orator within just three weeks. Of late, he has been connecting with voters by giving voice to feelings such as wanting to “crush those behind rampant paper leaks” and exhorting people to show the ruling BJP its “aukat (position)”.
The 28-year-old, declared the future face of the BSP by his ‘bua (aunt)’ Mayawati last December, has been active in politics since 2017 when the BSP was reduced to 19 seats in the assembly elections held that year. For him and his party, whose support has been dwindling, the 2024 general election is one of the biggest challenges they have ever faced.
According to BSP insiders, his advent coincided with the party embracing social media, and he received credit for convincing ‘behen ji’ to join various platforms, which she had disapproved of several times till her Twitter (now, X) debut in 2019.
BSP MLC Bhimrao Ambedkar told ThePrint that Akash got acquainted with the BSP movement and its objectives at a tender age. “Parivarik parivesh ke kaaran Ambedkarite sanskar shuru me hi aa gaye…(He learned about the Ambedkarite movement in his childhood due to the prevailing atmosphere at home).”
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Schooling in Noida, MBA in England
Akash Anand grew up in Noida and went to the Pathways School, a prominent private school in National Capital Region (NCR). He later went to England to pursue an MBA at the University of Plymouth.
On his return to India, he was officially introduced to party workers seven years ago by Mayawati around the same time she clipped the wings of former BSP MP Rajaram, who was once seen as her successor. A year later, the BSP supremo affirmed her trust on leaders like Jai Prakash Singh who was elevated as national coordinator only to be unseated later.
“Behen ji tried several leaders before bringing Akash ji to the front but they failed to meet her expectations,” said Ambedkar.
ThePrint spoke to a section of party leaders who revealed that several heirs-apparent have either been sidelined or have left the BSP. They also recalled how in a deviation from her 2007 and 2019 statements about never appointing anyone from her family as her political successor, Mayawati’s brothers have remained involved in party affairs for a long time.
“She was first close to her elder brother, Siddharth Kumar, whose daughter was spotted with ‘behen ji‘, even at official events. She later parted ways with him after he allegedly deserted her in 2003 when central probe agencies raided her house,” a former BSP MP said.
“For a long time, (former Rajya Sabha member) Satish Chandra Mishra was considered the de-facto number 2 in the party and a probable successor, but he was sidelined, too. Later, former Rajya Sabha member Rajaram was seen as an undeclared successor but was removed from all posts in 2017. She then elevated her younger brother, Anand Kumar, as the national vice-president,” added the former BSP legislator.
According to him, after Siddharth Kumar deserted her in 2003, Mayawati’s younger brother Anand Kumar’s family moved into her house to help her and this was followed by their elevation within the party.
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A face to woo those drifting to Bhim Army, others
Now 68, Mayawati has realised that in the absence of a young face, youngsters from the Dalit community have been drifting away from the party, according to insiders.
A senior BSP leader from Purvanchal said that while Mayawati continues to be the party supremo, Dalit and Bahujan youngsters seeking a young leader and drifting to Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad forced her to declare Akash her successor. “Not just Dalits but our core Jatav voters have drifted away from the party, hurting the BSP,” the leader said.
Akash’s ascent in the BSP was not abrupt, but gradual. “When he was introduced to the party workers in 2017, he was not given any major responsibility and remained away from public meetings,” a senior BSP leader told ThePrint.
However, it was only ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls that Akash addressed his first public meeting, in Agra, seeking votes for the candidate of the SP-BSP-RLD coalition. When he called the BSP chief ‘bua ji’, the crowd had burst into claps and cheers.
Since then, Akash’s responsibilities in the BSP have only grown and in September 2022, he was entrusted with mobilising voters in BSP’s favour ahead of the assembly polls in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh — a sign of his elevation within the party.
He addressed party meetings, along with public meetings, in the three states. In Rajasthan, he took out the ‘sarvajan hitaye, sarvajan sukhaye (for the welfare of all, for the happiness of all)’ yatra. While Akash’s role grew in other states where the BSP enjoys a support base, in Uttar Pradesh, ‘behen ji’ continues to be the last word, according to insiders, who also level allegations of a lack of her visibility on the ground.
“Behen ji is the one who is still making all decisions about UP. In meetings with zonal coordinators and district presidents, behen ji’s message is conveyed to workers. We are expecting that Akash ji’s role will grow slowly in UP, too. Lok Sabha polls are a platform for him to come out of behen ji’s shadow,” said a BSP leader who attended Akash’s Lalganj rally Thursday.
Not only did Akash connect with the Lalganj crowd, who responded with chants of “dekho dekho kaun aya…sher aya (look who has come…lion)”, and “BSP ki kya pehchan…neela jhanda hathi nishan (What are BSP’s identifiers? Blue flags, elephant symbol)”, he even used a fumble when a spider disrupted his speech to attack his rivals.
“Yeh makdiyan bhi aise hi jaal baandhti hain jaise yeh vipakshi partiyaan… lekin hume kuchalna ata hai (These spiders make webs like the opposition parties, but we know how to crush them),” he said, warning people of those wearing ‘neela gamcha’ but negating Mayawati — an indirect reference to the Bhim Army and other parties.
He also launched an attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for terming frying pakoras as “employment” and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi for his bulldozer politics, as well as taking potshots at Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and the Congress.
That he has been entrusted with the task of wooing back the youth is not lost on Akash.
“Behen ji has reserved 50 percent of posts in BSP for youngsters. We will try to fill them all,” Akash told ThePrint.
He dismissed the phenomenon of Chandrashekhar Azad, saying that the media gives the chief of the Azad Samaj Party more attention than he deserves.
Speeches of Akash, once described as soft-spoken, are now gaining traction for the feisty references such as “katora thamaya hai aapko (you have been forced to beg)” and “inka man chaahe to bheekh mangwa kar kahen ke yeh bhi rozgar hai (BJP wants to make you beg and say it is employment too)”.
On Sunday, a case was registered against Akash and four others for allegedly using objectionable language during a public meeting in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur.
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‘Akash Anand has much to prove’
According to political observers, while Akash now has a platform to make his mark in politics, he still has a lot to prove, especially since BSP’s declining fortunes are a ground reality.
“Akash Anand is from a political family. He was low profile but seen around Mayawati since childhood. Even before children from political families come to the front, their basic training starts. Akash’s father too was in politics but couldn’t be successful because of serious corruption charges,” Shashikant Pandey, head of the political science department at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, told ThePrint.
In the case of Akash, life was smoother than that of his aunt and father Anand Kumar — two among nine born in the family of a low-ranking Dalit clerk in Gautam Buddha Nagar’s Dadri.
“Due to his (Akash’s) dialogue delivery and raking up of public issues, those who have faith in Mayawati are seeing a ray of hope in Akash. It’s possible that in due course of time, he may grow, but his first challenge will be to reclaim the support among the SC (Scheduled Caste) and EBC (Economically Backward Classes) communities. One has to watch how much he can connect with voters because this is a very silent election, and people are drawn towards the INDIA bloc, too, in some seats,” Pandey added.
For now, Akash has made it clear that he won’t fight an election soon, which he confirmed in a conversation with ThePrint Thursday.
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‘Inspired by Kanshi Ram’
Pandey observed that Akash has also made conscious changes to his appearance to ensure a connection with the masses. His outfit, a half-sleeved white shirt and loose pants, is similar to what late BSP founder-leader Kanshi Ram would wear.
“When he was first launched in politics by Mayawati at a rally in January 2019, he was wearing shoes that attracted attention for their purportedly high cost. He would have learned that in politics, everything is taken note of and observed from other leaders like Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav,” he said.
“It is too early to say that he is styling himself as a young Kanshi Ram, who built a party, but if he works for five to ten years, there will be a lot of possibilities. The BSP cannot do anything with only Dalits and has to take other communities along, and also woo those who have drifted towards other parties for which an organisational resurrection is required,” Pandey added.
Akash knows that he has to bring BSP’s core voter base, along with Muslims and other backward classes, back to the party’s fold. But, his recent response to a question about a post-poll alliance with the BJP indicated the direction his politics might take.
Speaking to a media channel, Akash claimed the BSP aimed to come to power, which, along with the fact that he recently got Y+ security from the BJP government, showed the BSP might not be averse to an alliance with the BJP, according to political analysts.
“Smaller parties confined to a region have to ensure that they remain in power; otherwise, they are unable to extend favours to their supporters. This was the case with Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal and is now the case with Anupriya Patel-led Apna Dal (K) and Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas). BJP has allied with smaller outfits. It’s not surprising that Akash might be open to this idea. It remains to be seen if the BSP can win some seats, something only results can show,” Pandey said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)