Lucknow: In a major development, senior Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) national general secretary RK Chaudhary tendered his resignation to the party high command on Thursday and accused the party supremo Mayawati of auctioning election tickets.
Chaudhary, a well-known Kansi Ram loyalist was inducted into the party ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Adressing a press conference in the city, Chaudhary said, "At election time, tickets are allotted to the person who pays the highest amount,” he said, announcing his resignation from the party at a press conference."
In a vitriolic attack on Mayawati, he said since the death of party founder Kanshi Ram, there has been a marked change in her working style and veteran leaders, who functioned with missionary zeal, were not given adequate weightage.
Chaudhary (57) said Kanshi Ram had united different castes under one banner and evolved them into a group which could not be sold and due to his concerted efforts, a vote bank was created in all the Assembly constituencies of the state.
“But after Kanshi Ram, Mayawati started eyeing this non-saleable votebank and began selling tickets and BSP became a ‘mandi’ (wholesale market) for ticket selling… Under such circumstances, the party is no longer the mission of social change,” he said.
Alleging that BSP has deviated from the ideology of its ideologues, Chaudhary said capitalists have now come to the forefront.
The BSP leader also said that he felt suffocated in the party and therefore, decided to end all associations with it.
A known Kanshi Ram loyalist, Chaudhary, along with senior leaders Barkhu Ram Verma and Krisna Pal Singh, was unceremoniously expelled by the BSP chief on July 21, 2001 for opposing the party’s stand on reservation to the most backwards and Dalits.
He had, however, returned to the party on April 12, 2013 after over 11 years and is perhaps the only leader to be reinstated in the party and given the key post of coordinator after a long hiatus.
When he was out of BSP, he had floated Rashtriya Swabhiman Party and had extended support to then Samajwadi Party government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Chaudhary was among the oldest BSP members and had stood by Mayawati on June 2, 1995, when she was allegedly attacked by Samajwadi Party workers in the State Guest House here.
This is the second major setback to Mayawati after senior leader Swami Prasad Maurya quit the party, saying he too felt suffocated and accused the party chief of auctioning tickets for next year’s Assembly polls.
