Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati said here on Thursday that after facing defeat in the recent byelections in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, there was a possibility that the Bharatiya Janata Party would advance the Lok Sabha elections.
“They [the BJP] are having sleepless nights after the humiliating defeat in the bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. The [her] decision of backing the Samajwadi Party was to teach the BJP a lesson,” she said at a rally here.
‘Hindutva agenda’
“After this loss, the BJP is now baffled and there is a good chance that it may call for an early Lok Sabha elections, which are otherwise due in 2019. The BJP is aware that any delay will only damage its electoral prospects,” she said.
The BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were attempting to forcibly implement the agenda of Hindutva and capitalists in the country, the BSP chief said.
Hitting out at the Union government, Ms. Mayawati said it was trying to weaken democracy and make constitutional institutions toothless.
She alleged that the BJP had been misusing agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Income Tax Department and the electronic Voting Machines to muzzle the Opposition. “Where they are unable to tamper with the EVMs, they lose elections,” she said, adding that in the upcoming elections only ballot papers should be used.
‘Anti-Dalit, anti-poor’
She said the policies of the BJP were anti-Dalit, anti-poor and anti-minorities.
The BJP and the Congress did not care for backward and weaker sections. The existing reservation was under threat, she said, asking people not to support the BJP and similar parties.
“You [people] should not fall for their false election promises. The BJP promised the moon in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but now they have been exposed as they have failed to fulfil their promises,” she said.
Ms. Mayawati said that while Narendra Modi coined the slogan na khaunga, na khaane dunga , scams worth crores of rupees had come to the fore.
