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BSP may keep Mayawati birthday celebrations low key
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has decided to celebrate party chief Mayawati’s 64th birthday on January 15 in a simple manner as Jan Kalyankari Diwas in view of the several deaths that took place during anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (anti-CAA) protests across the state in December last year.
Mayawati has already directed the party leaders to meet the family members of those killed and assist the ‘innocent people’ arrested during the protests.
A senior party leader said the party workers will celebrate the party chief’s birthday in all the district and divisional headquarters in Uttar Pradesh and other states.
Mayawati’s nephew Akash Anand, the party’s national coordinator, and her brother Anand Kumar, who has been made the BSP national vice-president, are likely to be present in Lucknow during the birthday celebrations.
There is speculation that Mayawati may make some announcements about organisational changes on January 15.
Immediately after the birthday celebrations, the BSP will launch the campaign for the Delhi assembly elections.
The BSP had decided to contest the Delhi assembly elections on its own strength and field candidates on all the seats, said a senior party leader.
The BSP will use birthday to spur the cadre for the 2020 assembly elections in Delhi as well as the 2022 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, said a BSP leader.
Mayawati is likely to release the new edition of a travelogue penned by her ‘A Travelogue of My Struggle Ridden Life and BSP Movement’ and a missionary calendar of the party in a programme organised in the state unit office.
After losing power in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh assembly election, the BSP has been celebrating the birthday of Mayawati as ‘Jankalyankari Diwas’.
“The party leaders assist the needy, poor and the handicapped. They also visit Dalit hamlets and hospitals and distribute fruits and blankets among the poor. We will not visit hamlets or hospitals to distribute sweet and fruit,” said a senior BSP leader.
The BSP has been using Mayawati’s birthday celebrations to send a political message to the people over the years.
About 20 months after Mayawati became the UP chief minister in 2007, there was a grand celebration across the state on her birthday on January 15, 2009.
Display of opulence was quite palpable as the state capital was draped in blue. A massive dais was set up on the ground near the CM’s residence. BSP supporters, a majority of them Dalits, were transported from all the districts of UP and the neighbouring states, to the programme.