Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, on Tuesday, August 19, appointed Alok Kumar Verma as her Bahujan Samaj Party’s second national vice president (VP). This move followed a strong buzz in the media circuit that the BSP supremo has secretly selected her party’s VP Raja Ram, a member of the state upper house, as the inheritor to her legacy. The new second BSP vice president, however, was as little known within the party as Raja Ram.

Experts opine that the scheme behind the BJP supreme appointing two national vice-presidents for BSP is to confuse the political opponents of the party. The speculation about who is going to succeed Mayawati got intense as she declared on August 9 that she has already decided whom to make her official heir. ‘This person is 18-20 years younger to me, belongs to my own - chamar - community and I have left his name in a sealed packet kept with one of my close confidantes,’ she had stated.