Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Tuesday, while sounding the poll bugle cautioned her voters against the conspiracy of Opposition parties to try and wean them away from the BSP. The BSP chief, while addressing a rally on the occasion of the first death anniversary of BSP founder Kanshiram here, made her intention of going to the polls again on her own steam.
Mayawati, for the first time since the controversy over the Indo-US nuclear deal broke out, went public and blamed the Congress for bringing the situation of a mid-term poll.
“The Congress should have sought the opinion of the Opposition parties before committing the nation to the deal,” she stated and went on to add that in the Ram Setu controversy, too, the Congress had not done its homework before filing the affidavit in court.
Addressing the massive turnout at the ‘Sawdhan Raho, Aage Badho’ rally, the BSP supremo said she could feel the Lok Sabha elections nearing and asked the partymen to be prepared.
Mayawati also went public with her idea of making another division of the state in three parts. Calling for the trifurcation, Mayawati said if the Centre comes up with a proposal to truncate the state into three parts, Poorvanchal, Bundelkhand and Western UP, or Harit Pradesh, her government would support the move. This is just seven years after the state faced its first division when Uttarakhand was charted out of Uttar Pradesh.
Once again coming down heavily on the Congress, Mayawati clarified her government’s stand on development work and said that the state’s poor financial health was due to the indifference of the Centre.
“I met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh several times and asked for an economic package for the state but the Centre had not responded as yet. It is due to the severe financial crunch that I am unable to launch many more developmental schemes for the people,” she said.
Taking potshots at the Congress’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which was extended to the whole country at the behest of Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati said once her party is voted to power at the Centre, she will ensure that the rural poor are not just guaranteed 100 days of work, they are given permanent jobs to bring them on par with the mainstream.
Taking potshots at her main Opposition in the state, the Samajwadi Party (SP), she said since the mass base of BSP was increasing, it was giving the SP and other Opposition parties sleepless nights.
Taking the opportunity to laud the accomplishments of her government, Mayawati assured the people who had not got justice during the SP rule that they would get justice under BSP rule. She also refuted SP supreme Mulayam Singh Yadav’s accusation that she was resorting to the politics of revenge and sated that if that was indeed the case then Yadav himself would have been jailed by the BSP long time back.
Maintaining her stand on the ban on students’ union elections, she said it was temporary and polls would be allowed only after strict rules and regulations were in place.
“The state government is not against student unions. The ban imposed on union elections is in the interest of students. We are framing strict rules and regulations to check entry of criminal elements in academic institutions,” Mayawati said.
Expressing her sympathies for the sacked police constables, Mayawati said the move was necessary, as their recruitment had been done fraudulently. She also announced that 75,000 primary teachers would be appointed.