Mayawati picks three Dalits for Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council nominations

NEW DELHI: Mayawati leaned heavily upon her party’s core support base of Dalits in BSP’s last set of nominations for Rajya Sabha and State Legislative Council ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh early next year.
The BSP supremo has picked three Dalits of the five nominations (two Rajya Sabha and three Legislative Council) finalized on Friday. The decision to this effect, in fact, was announced to the party’s MLAs during their meeting at BSP headquarters in the national capital.

She has also renominated party’s Brahmin face Satish Chandra Mishra for the third term in the Rajya Sabha, to signal her party’s commitment of Brahmin-Dalit social engineering, which was credited for her election victory in the 2007 Assembly elections.

Mayawati has a tough task as the BSP can get only two members elected to Rajya Sabha next month as six of its sitting Rajya Sabha MPs retired this month. Among those who retired, included two from Dalit community, two from extremely backward community, one Brahmin and one Muslim.

She chose one Brahmin — Satish Mishra and one Dalit leader – Ashok Siddharth – as the second nominee to Rajya Sabha. Party sources confided that Siddharth’s nomination to Rajya Sabha has come with an eye on UP elections as it also means denial of renomination to BSP treasurer Ambeth Rajan, who has been a confidante of BSP founder Kanshiram earlier and now of Mayawati.

Siddharth not only hails from Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh but he has also been a region coordinator of the BSP in Bundelkhand and Kanpur regions and his services would be important during the assembly elections. Rajan, in contrast, hails from Tamil Nadu.

Mayawati nominating two Dalits (Dinesh Chandra and Atar Singh Rao) and one member from extremely backward Bind community (Suresh Kashyap) for state legislative council signal her commitment to these communities. BSP’s extra reliance on Dalit nominations comes in the backdrop of resurgent BJP and its campaigner-in-chief Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attempt to woo the Dalit community in the name of their commitment towards Dr BR Ambedkar.

Earlier too, Mayawati had nominated two Dalit members — Veer Singh and Rajaram to Rajya Sabha in November 2014 after BJP’s victory.