: If Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) chief Mayawati had distributed the money spent in amassing her bungalows, every Dalit household would get an air-conditioner, BJP chief Amit Shah said on Wednesday, attacking her over allegations of corruption during her tenure.
If the Samajwadi Party (SP) committed atrocities on Dalits, the BSP exploited them, Mr. Shah said, adding that OBC and Dalit leaders held a place not only in the organisation ( dal ) but also the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s heart ( dil ). Mr. Shah’s comments came as he welcomed two more BSP rebel MLAs into the party — Dharm Singh Saini from Saharanpur and Ramesh Prasad Kushwaha from Lalitpur. Both belong to backward castes.
Speaking as a chief guest at a rally organised here by the newly inducted BJP OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya, Mr. Shah said the ruling Yadav clan in SP was busy fighting over “the division of loot” and enacting a Mahabharat, in which Amar Singh played the role of ‘Narad’, without any concern for the common people’s needs. Even as he sought answers from Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for the law and order situation in the State, Mr. Shah wondered why tainted minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, mired in allegations of illegal mining, was sacked and then quickly re-inducted. “If there was no corruption in mining, every family in UP would get a colour TV,” Mr. Shah remarked.
The spotlight of the event, billed a Parivartan Maha-rally, however, was its estimated attendance. Mr. Maurya, who quit the BSP amid a lot of bad blood recently, had claimed he would break Mayawati’s “arrogance” by gathering a crown of five lakh people at her favourite arena, the massive Ramabai grounds, which most leaders other than her find difficult to fill.
The crowd at the much-hyped show-of-strength public meeting, however, looked nowhere to close to the figure. In fact, people started exiting the venue much before Mr. Shah arrived as he was delayed, leaving behind the sight of empty chairs and open spaces. BJP spokesperson Harish Srivastava estimated that over “one lakh people” attended the rally but downplayed the party’s role in arranging it. “The rally was organised by Swami Prasad Maurya in his personal capacity through his front Loktantrik Bahujan Manch, not by the BJP organisation,” he said.
Ms. Mayawati deployed the famous Hindi idiom “ khoda pahad aur nikli chuhiya ” (‘they dug a mountain only to find a mouse’) to dub Mr. Maurya’s event a “big flop show” and a failure. “To make the programme a success, Maurya even misused the posters and banners of BSP founder Kanshiram but his [Kanshiram’s] supporters understood the reality and did not come under the influence of the rebels,” the former UP chief minister said.
In his address, Mr. Shah urged the people of U.P. to end the circulation of power between the SP and BSP, while also dubbing the Congress a “vote katua ” or vote-splitter working to help the two.
He said Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi’s khat sabha s in U.P. were organised to directly benefit the two parties as a favour returned for their past collusion under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
Trading allegations
Claiming that the leadership of the SP and BSP were only busy filling their coffers at the neglect of common people’s interest, he said only the BJP would work for everyone’s progress through ‘ Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas ’ (‘Together with all, development for all’). He listed the corruption allegations under the previous Mayawati government and chided her for amassing bungalows.
Hitting back at the comment, Ms. Mayawati said Mr. Shah, who “held a casteist mentality” was unable to digest the fact that a Dalit’s daughter lived in a bungalow. She also termed as “deception” Mr. Shah’s comments that OBC and Dalit leaders had a place in the BJP’s heart, saying “history is evidence to this”.
Trying to corner the BSP on atrocities against Dalits, Mr.Shah said 1,074 Dalits were killed between 2008-2011, when Ms. Mayawati ruled the State. The BSP chief shot back saying her party had led a struggle against the “injustice and oppression” suffered by “every section of the society”, not just Dalits, in the last four years of the SP rule. She remained silent on the atrocity cases during her tenure.
