Mayawati expels party's key Muslim face, Naseemuddin Siddiqui and son from BSP for 'anti-party activities'

Lucknow: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Wednesday expelled its legislator Naseemuddin Siddiqui and his son from the party for carrying out “anti-party” activities. BSP general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Satish Chandra Mishra said Naseemuddin has also been accused of accepting money from people in return for work. [caption id=“attachment_1224313” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Naseemuddin Siddiqui. IBN Live.[/caption] “Siddiqui and his son Afzal have been expelled from the party. He has a partnership in a number of slaughter houses and ‘benami’ properties in his name. He also took money during assembly polls due to which party had to suffer defeat”, said BSP General Secretary and Rajya Sabha member Satish Chandra Mishra, adding that the BSP will not tolerate such indiscipline. This comes only days after Naseemuddin, who hails from Banda and was seen as an important Muslim face in the party, was removed from the post of party in-charge of Uttar Pradesh and was instead given charge of BSP’s Madhya Pradesh unit. Mayawati had in April announced a major organisational rejig when she took away the major responsibility from Naseemuddin and introduced her brother Anand Kumar in a big way. Kumar was made the party’s national vice-president, according to a report in  The Financial Times.  Mayawati had also dissolved the existing team of zonal, divisional and district coordinators and brotherhood committees set up to woo different castes and communities like Brahmins, Thakur and Muslims. Naseemuddin was considered to be a close aide of BSP supremo Mayawati. The news of his expulsion comes at a time when reports of rifts within the party are surfacing. According to a report in  The Indian Express, increasing voices of dissent have surfaced within the party, despite Mayawati’s authoritarian control over the BSP. The report said that after the recent poll rout, party workers are not ready to buy the EVM narrative and are miffed over inaction from the party supremo. Many in the party also feel that Mayawati has toned down her image as a Dalit rights crusader to appeal to a larger voter base but successive poll debacles prove that the move has been counterproductive. Many also feel that OBC leaders were being ignored in favour of Muslim leaders, while other parties, especially BJP has successfully managed to garner their support. After the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in which BSP failed to open its account, the BSP again suffered a humiliating defeat in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections where the party had managed to secure only 19 seats out of the total 403 seats. Mayawati had blamed EVMs for her party’s poor performance. On the AAP’s demonstration on EVMs in Delhi Assembly on Tuesday, Mishra said, “BSP was the first to raise the issue of misuse of EVMs”. With inputs from PTI