Maya expels two senior leaders over anti-party activities

: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Thursday expelled two senior leaders Lalji Verma and Ramachal Rajbhar, who are also party MLAs, on the charge of indulging in anti-party activities during the recently concluded panchayat elections, a press statement by the BSP’s state unit said on Thursday.

Verma was also replaced as the BSP legislature party leader in the assembly. The post has now gone to Shah Alam aka Guddu Jamali, the party MLA from Mubarakpur in Azamgarh district.Expressing surprise over his expulsion from the BSP, Lalji Verma ruled out joining any other political party.

“I will continue to work as a committed soldier of the BSP. I could not campaign for the party during the panchayat elections due to Covid-19 infection. I was admitted in SGPGI (Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences), Lucknow. I had informed the party chief about my ailment,” he said. The expulsion of the two senior leaders when the BSP is gearing up its cadre for the 2022 assembly polls has surprised political analysts.

An influential Kurmi community leader, Verma was a founder member of the party and a close aide of BSP founder the late Kanshi Ram. Projected as the backward class face of the BSP, he represented Katehri assembly constituency in Ambedkar Nagar district.

Ramachal Rajbhar, a close confidant of the BSP chief, represented Akbarpur assembly constituency in Ambedkar Nagar district.

Owing to his influence among the backward castes, particularly the Rajbhar community in central and east UP, Mayawati had promoted him as the party’s national general secretary earlier. He was also made the party’s Uttarakhand in-charge to expand its support base in the hill state before the 2022 assembly election there.

A party leader said the BSP’s performance was below expectations in its stronghold in Ambedkar Nagar district in the recently concluded panchayat elections. The party won only seven of the 41 zila panchayat ward seats there. Verma was forced to withdraw his wife Sobhawati Verma, a former zila panchayat chairperson, from the election due to an objection raised by BSP sector coordinator Ghanshyam Kharwar.

Verma’s relations with the party leadership soured when his close aides were not permitted to contest the panchayat election, the party leader said.

Earlier, Verma faced humiliation in the by-poll for the Jalalpur assembly seat in 2019 when his daughter Chaya Verma was defeated by the SP candidate, he said. Shyam Sunder Verma aka Sadhu Verma, said to be a close aide of Lalji Verma, contested the zila panchayat ward election as an independent candidate after the BSP denied him the party ticket. Sadhu won the election by a margin of 11,000 votes.

The BJP was planning to field Sadhu as the party candidate in the election the zila panchayat’s chairman post to be held in June-end, the party leader said, claiming that Sadhu met senior BJP leaders on Wednesday. There were rumours that Lalji Verma would also join the BJP, he said.

The BSP leader alleged that Ramachal Rajbhar was hobnobbing with SP leaders and Mayawati showed him the door on the basis of the party coordinators’ report.

To win the support of the Rajbhar community, Mayawati had earlier appointed Bhim Rajbhar as the state unit president, he said. The BSP had 18 MLAs in the legislative assembly.

After rebellion by nine MLAs — Ramvir Upadhyaya, Anil Singh, Aslam Raini, Aslam Ali, Mujtaba Siddiqui, Hakim Lal Bind, Hargovind Bhargava, Sushma Patel, Vandana Singh — and the expulsion of Lalji Verma and Ramachal Rajbhar, the party’s strength has been effectively reduced to seven MLAs in the assembly.

Mayawati has already announced that the BSP will go it alone in the 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.She will hold a meeting with senior party leaders to discuss the strategy for the elections, the BSP leader said.