Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Tuesday removed her nephew Akash Anand as the party’s national coordinator and her political successor “until he attains maturity”.
While she did not elaborate on what had led to her decision, this comes 10 days after Anand, along with other party leaders, was booked by Uttar Pradesh Police for allegedly promoting enmity after he used alleged unparliamentary language while criticising the Bharatiya Janata Party government at a rally.
“I had declared Akash Anand as the national coordinator and my successor, but in the larger interest of the party and the movement, he is being divested of both these important responsibilities until he attains full maturity,” Mayawati said in a social media post on Tuesday.
She added that Akash Anand’s father, Anand Kumar, will continue his responsibilities in the party.
“The BSP leadership is not going to shy away from making every sacrifice in the interest of the party and the movement and in taking forward the caravan of Babasaheb Dr Ambedkar,” she said.
At the election rally in Sitapur on April 28, Anand had described the BJP as a “government of traitors”.
“Where children go hungry, where women and girls face abuse, where the youth are jobless, and where people are exploited under the guise of free rations, there is a government of terrorists,” Anand had said. “Such a government is run by the Taliban in Afghanistan.”
The police charged Anand under Indian Penal Code section 502(2) that deals with the sale of printed or engraved substance containing defamatory matter and section 125 of the Representation of People’s Act for promoting enmity during an election campaign.
Anand’s removal from the high-ranking post in the party comes six months after Mayawati had declared him as her political successor. He has been the party’s coordinator for the past four years.
The party is not contesting the Lok Sabha elections as part of an alliance.
In December, the Bahujan Samaj Party had suspended its Lok Sabha MP Danish Ali for alleged anti-party activities. At the time, Ali was seeking action against the BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri who had used communal slurs against him inside Parliament in September.
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