After 15 years, BSP picks a Dalit as its floor leader in Lok Sabha

THE BSP has appointed its Nagina MP Girish Chandra — a Dalit — to lead its 10-member team in the newly elected Lok Sabha. This is after nearly 15 years that BSP has chosen a Dalit MP as floor leader in the Lower House of the Parliament. Party chief Mayawati was floor leader in the Lok Sabha in 2004 but she resigned in a few months.

The party decided to nominate Chandra as leader in the House in a recent meeting with all its MPs. Party MP from Jaunpur Shyam Singh Yadav was nominated as deputy leader and Amroha MP Kunwar Danish Ali was appointed chief whip in the House. In these appointments, the BSP maintained “Dalit-Yadav-Muslim” social equation that was the base of its alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh.

The party had drawn a blank in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In 2009, Dara Singh Chauhan — an OBC — was BSP leader in the Lok Sabha and in 2004, another OBC leader, Rajesh Verma, was the party’s leader in the House. Both Verma and Chauhan are now in the BJP. While Chauhan is a minister in the UP cabinet, Verma is MP from Sitapur.

Mayawati has called a meeting of the party organisation — its first after the Lok Sabha poll results — on June 3 in Delhi where all the newly-elected MPs, national office-bearers, zonal coordinators and districts presidents of UP have been invited and a review of the poll performance is also likely to be done.

Sources said Mayawati had already held a meeting of the newly-elected MPs in Delhi and they were urged to strongly raise the issues of Dalits and backward classes in the House in the upcoming sessions. Sources said Mayawati has not given any specific directives about coordination with SP in Parliament yet.

The SP, which contested on 37 seats and won just five seats, is yet to decide its floor leader in the Lok Sabha. Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said decisions on party leaders and other posts would be taken after the newly-elected MPs take oath. “But our coordination with the BSP in the Parliament will be maintained, being alliance partners,” Chaudhary said.

Meanwhile, SP chief Akhilesh will make his first public appearance after the poll results in his constituency Azamgarh where he will address an “aabhaar sabha” on June 3.