The demise of Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram, who single-handedly succeeded in bringing the larger chunk of Dalits in several parts of the country under his banner has left political analysts debating -- whether the BSP will stand to gain or lose on that account.

While insiders and BSP protagonists strongly feel that the party patriarch's end will lead to a sympathy surge for the party, critics were of the view that the empire that Kanshi Ram built brick by brick will crumble with his departure.

And they have none other than Kanshi Ram's anointed successor Mayawati [Images] to blame for that. What they resented was her inheritance of Kanshi Ram's political legacy.

"Even though Mayawati had virtually kept Kanshi Ram under house arrest during his illness when she will not allow anyone, including his family members, to meet him, he was still a string binding force; now that he is no more, Mayawati does not have anything about her to hold the party together," observed former BSP Lok Sabha member Harbhajan Lal Lakha.

"You will see the party splitting and crumbling now," predicted Lakha who was among the BSP founders along with Kanshi Ram. Lakha, who was BSP's first parliamentarian in the Lok Sabha, was ousted from the party at Mayawati's behest.

And currently he was busy trying to put up his own Dalit outfit by mobilizing all Mayawati-stung leaders and workers. Eight former BSP parliamentarians have already joined him on account o their differences with Mayawati.

Isham Singh, who was the latest to be shown the door by Mayawati, predicted: "Mayawati is a despot under whom the party can never grow; it is bound to disintegrate now that Kanshi Ramji is not on the scene."

He further asserted, "And let me tell you, I am not obliged to Mayawati at all; it was Kanshi Ramji, not Mayawati, who made me Member of Parliament."

Leaders of rival political parties however feel that the BSP leader's demise may not have much impact on the elections for the same reason. "Since he was already indisposed and poll campaigns were run by Mayawati alone, I don't think Kanshi Ramji's death will really make any deep impact on the poll outcome for the BSP," state Congress president Salman Khurshid told this scribe.

Party insiders strongly believe that his death was bound to play a role in determining the party outcome of assembly elections slated early next year.

"BSP stands to gain on this account," Swami Prasad Maurya, state leader of the party, observes, adding: "The death of our great leader will evoke mass sympathy for the party."

Asked if the leader's death could again stoke the simmers against Mayawati, he said, "The question does not arise; Mayawatiji has been unanimously accepted as the natural inheritor of Kanshi Ram's political legacy and she has well established herself as one."

BSP national general secretary Satish Chandra Misra, who was responsible for the latest alignment of a large number of upper caste Brahmins with the Dalit party, sought to reinforce the point by asserting that after all it was Mayawati who carried out the party campaign single-handedly at two past elections in different parts of the country -- both parliament and state assembly polls.

Notwithstanding controversies that surround Mayawati and her succession, Kanshi Ram was always all for her. Aware of his deteriorating health on account of the galloping diabetes and hyper-tension, he made it a point to anoint her well during his sound health.

Disregarding the simmers and even outbursts of dissent, he chose to declare her as his heir by formally entrusting the reins of the party to her. He made no bones about the fact that she was his chosen one -- prot�g�, compatriot, and companion.

He turned a deaf ear to claims of his other comrade-in-arms who had been with him in his mission right from his early days in politics when he mobilized Dalit and Backward officials in the central government way back in the mid-seventies. He even went to the extent of parting ways with them when they dared to question the precedence accorded to Mayawati.

He demonstrated his preference for Mayawati in 1993 itself, when the opportunity actually came to him to don the mantle of Uttar Pradesh [Images] chief minister. He promptly offered the mantle to Mayawati, who left no stone unturned to convey to all and sundry in the party rank and file that she was the boss.

In the recent years, even as his health began to deteriorate, Kanshi Ram remained an emotive symbol for BSP workers. Mayawati lost no time in further driving home the point that she was the sole inheritor. Evidently, by the time the end came, her claim was well established despite simmers of discontent not only from political quarters of the party but also from Kanshi Ram's own blood relations including his old mother, brothers and sisters.

Having remained bed-ridden -- initially in Delhi's [Images] Batra Hospital and later in Mayawati's home -- for more than three years now, Kanshi Ram made his last public appearance on his 72nd birthday, when he was brought before BSP workers in Delhi.

The move was seen as a signal of BSP getting into the gear for the forthcoming polls in India's [Images] most populous and politically crucial Uttar Pradesh state. If that could pay dividends in recharging the party rank and file, his death was bound to give yet another boost to the party at the hustings without Kanshi Ram for the first time, early 2007.