Click to play videoLucknow: UP Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati on Saturday announced she had selected her successor and would reveal the name at an appropriate time.
Mayawati told a party convention at Lucknow’s Rama Bai Ambedkar ground that her successor was much younger than her and was from a poor farmer's family.
Mayawati, at a rally in October 2007, had introduced her brother Anand Kumar to the party and this led to rumours that he might become her successor in the party.
But in over hour-long speech, Mayawati made it clear that her successor would not be from her family. She also said that she had given her successor’s name to two confidants.
“I have chosen my successor but I won’t disclose the name. The person is 18 years younger to me and is a Dalit. The name will be disclosed only when I am dead. Apart from me only two other people know the name," she said.
"I have penned down his name in a sealed packet left in the safe custody of two of my close confidantes. These two people have been told to open the packet and disclose the name of this successor either in the event of my sudden death or if my political adversaries succeed in their vicious gamelan of sending me to jail on trumped-up charges," she said.
Mayawati claimed she was forced to select her successor because her political opponents might get her killed in the guise of a terrorist or Naxal attack.
She alleged that rival political parties were against a Dalit becoming the Prime Minister. “The Congress, BJP and company cannot see a Dalit woman as Prime Minister of the country hence there is danger to my life.''
"Although the UPA and NDA somehow managed to stall me from becoming the Prime Minister but the developments helped the party achieve in six days what it would otherwise have managed in six to seven years."
Ridiculing Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi’s speech during the debate on trust vote in Parliament on July 22, she termed it as “romantic” but meaningless.
''Staging road shows and staying overnight in a dalit home would not do good to dalits,'' she said.
Announcing BSP’s election strategy for the Lok Sabha next year, she said she had already selected candidates for all 80 parliamentary seats in the state.
Shahid Siddiqui, the Rajya Sabha MP who recently left the Samajwadi Party, would be the BSP candidate from Bijnore.
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