Mayawati dissolves BSP's district units

In a surprise move, Bahujan Samaj Party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Thursday not only dissolved all district and city level  units of the ruling party, but also the  "bhai–chara samitis" raised amid much fanfare  to promote her much hyped "social engineering", that was believed to have propelled her to power in 2007.

While senior party leaders were tight lipped on the issue, insiders claimed that the move was a part of the exercise to revamp the party and prepare it for the 2012 state assembly elections.

Having announced earlier this week to keep her party out of all bye-elections in order to keep her partymen focused on the next assembly polls, Mayawati once again made it loud and clear to her lieutenants, "your goal should now be 2012."

She was addressing a marathon meeting of party MPs, MLAs, and other important functionaries including district coordinators in Lucknow. Impressing upon her partymen that complete revamp of the state BSP was necessary, she was stated to have told them, "this move is aimed at reinforcing the party right down to the grassroots level."

The "bhai-chara" committees, formed before the 2007 state assembly polls, were believed to have played the magic of roping in a section of the upper castes into the ambit of the otherwise essentially Dalit oriented BSP.

Her concentration on the 2012 elections could be gauged from the fact that she even announced suspension of district level demonstrations to mark BSP's protest against what she termed as  "step-motherly" treatment by the central government, as also against "unprecedented price rise". She said, "the demonstrations will remain suspended until September 1 ", indicating that the re-organisation of the districts level units would be completed by then.

Mayawati also hailed her party workers for the party's thumping victory at the recently concluded Domaraiyaganj state assembly bye-election.