My successor will be a dalit, says Mayawati

Apparently rattled by the confusing signals to her core votebank, the dalits, ahead of the assembly elections, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati today said her political successor would be from the Dalit community. Mayawati has of late been sending conciliatory signals to the Brahmins and other upper castes in a bid to expand her base.

Mayawati, elected the chairperson of the party for the second consecutive term today, said she was made the successor of Kanshi Ram when she was young and now she would do the same in the coming days.

She also made it clear that her successor would be much younger than her. "The future president of the BSP should be a young person so that he or she gets enough political training to fight for the party's ideology," she said.