The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a centrist

Centrism

In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...

 national political party in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 with socialist leanings. It was formed to chiefly represent Bahujans (literally meaning "People in majority"), referring to people from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Castes (OBC) as well as Buddhists. The party claims to be inspired by the philosophy of B. R. Ambedkar

B. R. Ambedkar

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar , popularly also known as Babasaheb, was an Indian jurist, political leader, philosopher, thinker, anthropologist, historian, orator, prolific writer, economist, scholar, editor, a revolutionary and one of the founding fathers of independent India. He was also the Chairman...

. The BSP was founded by the high-profile, charismatic leader Kanshi Ram

Kanshi Ram

Kanshi Ram was an Indian politician. He founded the Bahujan Samaj Party , a political party with the stated goal of serving the traditionally lower castes of Indian society . He transferred the BSP's leadership to Mayawati...

 in 1984, who was succeeded by Mayawati

Mayawati

Mayawati is the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, India. She heads the Bahujan Samaj Party, which represents the Bahujans or Dalits, the weakest strata of Indian society. This is her fourth term as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh...

 in 2003.