LUCKNOW: Kanshi Ram’s Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh split for the third time since its ascendance to powers in the State, hours before the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly by the President this week when a bunch of its MLAs crossed over to the Samajwadi Party camp under the leadership of the State party chief, Jang Bahadur Patel.

‘The unexpected move left the former UP Chief Minister, Ms, Mayawati fretting and fuming, and SP’s main rival BJP in a state of stunned disbelief.

The fact that the move was spearheaded) by the former BSP Minister, Ram Lakhan Verma, has the SP supremo, Mulayam Singh Yadav, ‘merge as the master manipulator in the tangled web of UP politics.

The new breakaway group, which joined hands with the BSP (Raj Bahadur), claimed the backing of 33 of the 59 MLAS the Kanshi Mayawati ‘outfit was left with when it formed the minority government in UP, and Patel ost no time in expelling Ms. Mayawati from the party, Ms, Mayawati, on the other hand, chal Tenged the claims of Patel and Verma. She, in tum, expelled Patel and four exMLAs from the party maintaining that they had duped some BSP legislators last week by telling them that their meeting was on the instructions of Kanshi Ram. “Most of them have spurned them and are with me and Kanshi Ram,” she asserted. The latest split led to an immediate confrontation between Ms. Mayawati and the Patel Verma factions on, the possession of BSP State headquarters on the Vidhan Sabha Marga Oct.28.

Armed supporters of Ms. Mayawati fought pitched battles with the rebels early in the day and threw the latter out.

While nearly decimating the BSP’s apparatus in Uttar Pradesh, last week’s developments have also embarrassed the State BJP leadership, specially the Kalyan Singh Kalraj Mishra group which had virally coerced the party’s national leadership into changing its earlier stand in favor of immediate dissolution of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

Ms. Mayawati, too, claimed a victory of sorts, “We have been demanding dissolution of the Assembly ever since withdrawal of support by the BJP,” she said.

The rebels, Jang Bahadur Patel and Ram Lakhan Verma on the other hand described Mayawati as “a dictator who was trying to mortgage the BSP to the BIP.”

They were, however, more careful with their words when asked about their, attitude toward Kanshi Ram. “We will ‘continue to respect him as a messiah of Dalits even if he sides with Ms.Mayawati,” Verma said,

What is bugging the BSP supreme is the fear that those within the party not willing to join Mulayam Singh Yadav’s bandwagon, might drift toward the BJP.

Article extracted from this publication >> November 3, 1995