The Bahujan Samaj Party has rejected Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad’s appeal to party president Mayawati to join hands with him to fight the Bhartiya Janata Party.
Reportedly, a senior party functionary termed a letter written by Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar Azad to Mayawati as a ‘ploy to create confusion among Dalits’. He added that the BSP has already launched an awareness campaign in the Dalit-dominated areas in Uttar Pradesh to counter the Bhim Army’s propaganda.
Reportedly, the state and district unit leaders of the party have been directed to make the party cadres aware of Chandra Shekhar’s alleged plan to divide Dalits at the BJP’s instance.
The BSP leader said that Mayawati was the tallest Dalit leader who had not only devoted her life to the uplift of Dalits but also the members of the community considered her as their role model.
Mayawati had already stated that if the Bhim Army leadership or other Dalit organizations were really interested in the empowerment of the community, they should work under the banner of the BSP to take forward the movement launched by Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar and BSP founder Kanshi Ram, he added.
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After his release from his arrest over the agitations during the Ravidas Temple incident, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad had extended a hand of friendship towards BSP supremo Mayawati asking her to come together to fight against the BJP.
Chandrashekhar, who refers to Mayawati as ‘Bua’ or aunt, had written an open letter to Mayawati asking her to join him in a discussion over strengthening the Bahujan movement to fight the incumbent BJP government for its alleged anti-Dalit policies.
In a four-page letter addressed to the BSP chief, Chandrashekhar had written about the important “political turn” the country is allegedly going through, where “communal and casteist powers are rampant.”
“The BJP has formed government in 2014 and then in 2019 and it is a clear indication that its power has increased. Barring South India, the BJP is in a strong position elsewhere, even in Uttar Pradesh which was considered as a stronghold of Bahujan movement once,” the letter read.
Just before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati had lashed out at Bhim Army Chief Chandrashekhar Azad on Twitter calling him a BJP mole. She had alleged that Chandrashekhar contesting from Varanasi seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is a BJP conspiracy to divide the Dalit vote and take advantage.
