Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati foresees early general elections but said her party would not do anything to bring down the government.
“In its first term the UPA was trying to balance its coalition partners. In its second term because of its wrong policies poverty, unemployment and inflation is up. With only one-and-a-half years left for the UPA-II, we do not want it to be said that they could have achieved much but for the BSP,” she said.
In an interview to The Hindu on Saturday, Ms. Mayawati dubbed as “drama” the scuffle in the Lok Sabha last week over the Constitutional (117th) Amendment Bill providing for quota in promotions in government jobs to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes and said marshals could have been used to remove those disrupting the Minister.
On the demand for the death penalty to rape accused, she said there was need to strengthen the law. “If the government brings a proposal for the death penalty for such offenders, our party will support it.”
Was the CBI being misused by the UPA government? She said that in her case it was the BJP that misused the agency. “But yes, governments at the Centre do misuse the CBI. It should not be done. It is not good for a healthy democracy.”
Ms. Mayawati refused to be drawn into the clamour from a section of the BJP for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to be the prime ministerial candidate. “It is for the BJP to decide whether it wants to make him CM or PM.”
“But will the country ever see a Dalit Prime Minister? When the time comes, nobody can stop it. When will the time come?`I can’t say.”