Lucknow , April 5: The ruling Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh has begun tapping the thakur community in order to compensate for losses that the party might suffer with brahmins across the state alienated from it.
BSP minister Badshah Singh, one of three party leaders tasked with bringing thakurs within the BSP fold, hosted a dinner at his residence here Sunday night where eminent and powerful members of the community were invited.
The minister took pains to explain that the BSP had never been against the entire thakur community, only a few individual lawbreakers who had faced stringent action.
He detailed various achievements by the Mayawati government, while the thakur leaders complained of high-handed behaviour at the hands of subordinate officers at the village and tehsil level.
The minister promised to brief the chief minister about these problems and said remedial steps would be taken soon.
Sources said Mr Badshah Singh plans to hold “thakur bhaichara” meetings in the Purvanchal and Bundelkhand regions, which have a high concentration of thakurs. Another meeting is planned in Varanasi later this month. Two other thakur leaders asked to bring their community closer to the BSP are Jaiveer Singh and Dhananjay Singh, both of whom will launch their own initiatives by the end of this month.
The BSP’s decision to extend an olive branch to thakurs comes after Mr Satish Chandra Misra, the BSP’s second in command and the party’s brahmin face, was publicly down-
sized by the chief minister at the BSP’s March 15 “maharally”.
The clipping of Mr Misra’s wings, followed by the removal of some influential brahmin officials, has sent out the clear signal that the BSP no longer accords a prominent place to brahmins. The attendance of brahmin at last month’s “maharally” is further evidence that the community is moving away from the BSP.
While brahmins constitute around nine per cent of UP’s total population, thakurs comprise around five per cent. Even at five per cent, however, they are powerful enough to determine voting patterns in areas of influence and can affect another five per cent of the vote in such regions.
It might be recalled that thakurs had felt marginalised by the BSP after Ms Mayawati put two powerful thakur satraps, Raghuraj Pratap Singh a.k.a. Raja Bhaiyya and Dhananjay Singh, behind bars in 2002 for allegedly plotting to topple her government.
After she formed the government again in 2007, she made a conscious effort to send out signals that her party was willing to make amends to the thakur community. Dhananjay Singh, who had been in jail for almost a year and a half during BSP rule, was brought into the party fold to drive the message home.
Amita Verma