Agra: Sending clear signals about her pre-poll strategy for Uttar Pradesh, BSP chief Mayawati Sunday slammed the BJP and RSS — she even targeted Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat — and told people that SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav once “conspired to attack” her. But she almost spared the Congress.
Launching her election campaign at a huge rally in Agra, Mayawati kept the focus on Dalits, Muslims and the most backward, repeatedly hitting out at “capitalists and money bags” and accusing the BJP of gaining power with their support. She also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “monumental failure on the front of social welfare”.
Hoping to consolidate her voteshare among Dalits and Muslims, she said religious crime and persecution of Muslims have increased under BJP rule. “They victimise Muslims in the name of gau raksha, aatankwad and love jihad. We must stop BJP from coming to power. Otherwise, development will be secondary and the strategy of RSS will be served first,” she said.
In a rare attack on Bhagwat, she said while “poverty and unemployment have increased”, the “RSS chief is saying that Hindus should produce more children”.
“I want to tell the RSS head that while you are asking Hindus to produce more children, you should also ask Narendra Modi and his government if they will be able to give them means of employment? People are already suffering, what will happen to them when they have more children?”
Targeting Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav who recently called her “bua”, she said that Mulayam Singh Yadav once “conspired to attack me… so, what moral right does his son have to call me bua”.
She said the SP “deliberately uses its family tussle to deflect the attention of people” from any major incident and “when the situation normalises, they begin praising each other”.
On the Congress, she said the party wants to garner support of the upper castes and “has made an old Brahmin woman the CM candidate who had blamed the people of UP and Bihar for Delhi’s filth during her regime… her government misused funds meant for Dalits”.
Over the next three Sundays, Mayawati will address gatherings in three different parts of the state — Azamgarh (August 28), Allahabad (September 4) and Saharanpur (September 11). Her present phase of campaigning will end in Lucknow on October 9, before the party draws a new schedule after Diwali.
The Agra rally catered to some 40 assembly seats of Agra and Aligarh zones and she assured all the probables present that their tickets were “confirmed”. The BSP has internally announced candidates for almost each of the 403 seats. Her ticket composition confirms her focus as at least 100 are Muslims, over 50 Brahmins, 50 Thakurs, Vaishyas and other upper castes, while Dalits, OBCs and MBCs constitute the remaining 200.
She accused the BJP government of failing its electoral promise of the 2014 elections. “The BJP had promised to bring back black money, and said that every poor person would be given Rs 15-20 lakh,” she said, adding that “not a single person has received this amount”.
The BJP, she told the crowd, ruled Uttar Pradesh for six years, but “instead of focusing on development, it strengthened the RSS agenda”.
During the Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi had promised to “give cheap government ration”, “free electricity” and “homes to homeless people from government funds”. “Did Narendra Modi give you homes?” She said it was due to her “pressure” that the BJP was forced to withdraw its land acquisition Bill that was “against the poor”.
She alleged that the BJP came to power because of “capitalists” and “money bags”. “Government banks under the central government have waived 1 lakh 14 thousand crore debt of capitalists and moneybags in the last three years,” she said, adding that small traders are forced to commit suicide because they are pressured to pay even small debts.
She accused the BJP of “breaking into the vote bank of the BSP”, mentioning the ongoing Dhamma Chetna Yatra and said it was trying to woo community members in the name of Buddhism. She said the BJP “shaved heads of some RSS members, made them fake Dalits, and fake Buddha monks” and “launched a Dhamma Chetna Yatra”.
But the Una incident and Dayashankar Singh’s remarks against her, she said, have united Dalits against the BJP and RSS across the country. She said the BJP might once again “foist the slogan of Tilak, Tarazu aur Talwar” on the BSP and “mislead upper castes”.
She clarified that “if the BSP had any such perception towards the upper castes, our party would not have given upper castes the top posts”.
Mayawati even blamed a section of media “controlled by capitalists” for trying to “provide benefits to the parties they are associated with”.
She mentioned that some months ago, survey agencies had rated BSP as the number one party for the UP elections, but it was “the conspiracy of capitalists” to “make the BSP complacent” and help the BJP.
Bureau Report
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