BSP Succession Puzzle: Why Mayawati Is Turning To Her Younger Nephew After Sidelining The Elder One | Explainers News

Last Updated:September 08, 2026, 14:34 IST

The latest twist came after Mayawati said Akash should not be entrusted with a major responsibility for now. Within days, Ishan was given a significant organisational assignment.

Mayawati’s latest move to give a key organisational responsibility to her younger nephew Ishan Anand, days after once again sidelining Akash Anand, has revived the biggest unanswered question inside the Bahujan Samaj Party: who will eventually inherit the BSP from its longest-serving leader?

For nearly three years, the answer appeared to be Akash Anand. But his political journey under Mayawati has now become a cycle of elevation, removal, rehabilitation and another setback.

The latest twist came after Mayawati indicated that Akash, 31, needs greater political maturity and should not be entrusted with a major responsibility for now. Within days, his younger brother Ishan, 27, was given a significant organisational assignment.

Ishan has been appointed a chief sector in-charge and tasked with reviewing the BSP’s organisation and activities across around 15 states outside Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The two states remain under Mayawati’s direct supervision. Ishan, a legal studies graduate from the University of Westminster in Britain, had largely remained outside the party’s frontline politics until recently.

The timing is significant. It comes just as the BSP is preparing for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and after Mayawati had begun projecting Akash more visibly in the party’s election preparations.

Political analyst Dr Shashikant Pandey, head of the Department of Political Science at Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, said the appointment should be viewed as part of Mayawati’s effort to retain control while testing alternative leadership options.

“Mayawati has consistently ensured that no individual, including a potential successor, becomes larger than the BSP’s centralised leadership structure. Ishan’s appointment gives her another option without committing her to a final succession decision,” Pandey said.

Who Is Akash Anand?

Akash Anand is the son of Mayawati’s younger brother Anand Kumar. He entered active politics in 2017, when he began appearing with Mayawati at party programmes. He was 22 at the time. London-educated, Akash holds an MBA and was gradually given responsibilities across states where the BSP was trying to rebuild its organisation. He worked in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana and was given an important role in managing the party’s electoral campaigns.

His rise accelerated in June 2019 when Mayawati appointed him BSP national coordinator. The decisive moment came in December 2023. At a meeting of senior party functionaries, Mayawati formally designated the then 28-year-old Akash as her political successor. That was more than just a generational change. Mayawati was 67 at the time and had led the BSP for decades. By putting Akash at the centre of the organisation, she appeared to be preparing the party for a post-Mayawati era. But the succession plan did not last.

First Setback: 2024 Lok Sabha Election

Akash’s first major political crisis came during the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign. After a speech at Sitapur, an FIR was registered against Akash and others over allegations of promoting enmity. Mayawati reacted by removing him as national coordinator and withdrawing his status as her political successor.

She said the decision was in the interest of the party and the movement and that Akash needed to attain greater political maturity. He was also barred from campaigning. The move was particularly striking because it came only months after Mayawati had publicly positioned him as her successor.

In June 2024, however, Mayawati reversed course. Akash was reinstated as national coordinator and once again designated her political heir. The BSP subsequently deployed him in election-related responsibilities in several states.

Second Setback: Expulsion In 2025

The second rupture was even more dramatic. In March 2025, Mayawati again removed Akash from key organisational responsibilities and said he would not be her successor. He was expelled from the BSP the following day.

This time, the dispute also had a family dimension. Mayawati had accused Akash of allowing family interests and relatives to influence his political decisions. His father-in-law and senior BSP leader Ashok Siddharth had also come under criticism.

Akash subsequently apologised and pledged that he would not allow relatives or advisers to influence his political decisions. Mayawati accepted him back into the party in April 2025.

Then came another remarkable turnaround. In May 2025, Mayawati appointed Akash as the BSP’s chief national coordinator, giving him responsibility over the party’s organisational machinery across states. The move again raised expectations that he was being prepared for a larger role.

By 2026, Akash was once again being projected as an important face of the BSP’s attempt to connect with younger voters.

And then came the latest reversal.

Why The Latest Move Matters

In August 2026, Akash began appearing in the BSP’s preparations for the 2027 UP elections. He addressed party workers in Hathras on August 10 and in Gautam Buddha Nagar on August 25 and announced BSP candidates for two Assembly constituencies.

Party sources had indicated plans for more public meetings by him in October-November. Instead, on September 3, Mayawati again signalled that Akash would not be given a major responsibility.

Her explanation was strikingly similar to the one she had given in 2024: Akash needed more maturity. She also invoked the legacy of BSP founder Kanshi Ram, saying she remained committed to his principle that family members could assist in party work but should not automatically be given political positions or electoral tickets.

The development was followed by another signal from Akash himself. His social-media profile was first changed to describe him as a “BSP worker” and subsequently as a “BSP supporter”. His name was also missing from the latest organisational list. He has not, however, formally announced his resignation from the BSP.

Enter Ishan Anand

Against this backdrop, Ishan’s emergence assumes greater significance. Ishan is younger, has no comparable record of public controversies and, until recently, had maintained a relatively low profile.

His first prominent public appearance at a BSP event came in January 2025 during Mayawati’s birthday programme. His presence at subsequent party meetings increasingly suggested that Mayawati was bringing him into the organisational ecosystem.

At the latest organisational meeting, Ishan occupied the seat normally associated with Akash. Now he has been handed responsibility for around 15 states.

That does not, by itself, make Ishan Mayawati’s successor. But it does establish something important: Mayawati now has another family member being tested inside the BSP’s organisational structure at precisely the moment Akash’s political trajectory has again been interrupted.

Pandey said Ishan’s relatively low public profile could work in his favour within the BSP’s tightly managed structure. “Ishan does not carry the political baggage that has accumulated around Akash. For Mayawati, that may make him easier to assess and control organisationally. But an administrative assignment across states is not the same as a public mandate or a declaration of political succession,” he said.

Is Ishan Being Launched For 2027?

That remains an open question. The immediate assignment is organisational rather than electoral. Ishan will have to demonstrate his ability to manage party units, coordinate state-level functionaries and build an organisation outside Uttar Pradesh.

But the timing makes a political launch before the 2027 Assembly election difficult to rule out.

The BSP is also attempting to reposition itself among younger voters. Mayawati has recently spoken about issues concerning Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha, signalling an attempt to broaden the party’s appeal beyond its traditional political framework.

A young, English-educated face from the Mayawati family could therefore serve a dual purpose: organisational succession planning and an attempt to present a younger face to a new generation of voters.

Pandey said the appointment could also be linked to the BSP’s need to rebuild its organisational network beyond its traditional strongholds. “The BSP’s immediate problem is organisational decline. If Ishan can coordinate state units effectively and establish credibility among workers, Mayawati may use him as a younger organisational face in the run-up to 2027. But that process will have to be judged by performance, not by family proximity,” he said.

But is Ishan the successor? Not yet.

In fact, the latest developments suggest that Mayawati herself is keeping the succession question deliberately unsettled.

There is a pattern in her handling of Akash: promote him, publicly elevate him, remove him, reinstate him and then again pull him back.

That pattern indicates that Mayawati is unwilling to allow the question of succession to become bigger than her own authority.

Her repeated invocation of Kanshi Ram’s opposition to dynastic politics also gives her political room to keep both nephews within the organisation without formally naming either as her successor.

For now, therefore, Ishan’s appointment should be read less as a declaration of succession and more as Mayawati opening another lane in the BSP’s next-generation leadership experiment.

Pandey said Mayawati’s approach reflected both political caution and institutional vulnerability. “She is balancing two competing imperatives: preserving the BSP’s ideological and organisational identity, and ensuring that the party has a recognisable leadership beyond her. By keeping the succession open, she retains authority, but she also risks creating uncertainty among party workers and supporters,” he said.

The Larger Question For BSP

The real challenge for Mayawati is not simply finding a younger face. It is finding a leader capable of rebuilding a party whose electoral influence has declined sharply and which is facing competition for sections of its traditional social base from the Samajwadi Party, BJP and newer Dalit-centric political formations.

Akash was supposed to be that answer. His political style, however, repeatedly became a source of friction with Mayawati’s tightly controlled organisational model.

Ishan now gets an opportunity to prove whether he can succeed where his elder brother repeatedly stumbled.

For Mayawati, the immediate objective appears clearer than the succession question: keep control firmly with herself, test the next generation, and enter the 2027 election without allowing any potential successor to become bigger than the BSP itself.

The irony is that by repeatedly changing Akash’s role and now elevating Ishan, Mayawati may have unintentionally made the succession question even more central to the BSP’s politics.

And that question remains unanswered: after Mayawati, will the BSP belong to Akash, Ishan – or to someone entirely outside the family?

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