Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati has said getting rid of the Congress-led UPA government and preventing the Bharatiya Janata Party from coming to power posed a big challenge for the BSP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
Ms. Mayawati said a fresh crisis would emerge in the country if they are not stopped in their tracks. She was reviewing the BSP’s Lok Sabha election preparedness and the working of party coordinators and “bhaichara committees” (brotherhood committees) on Sunday.
With political parties vying for the Other Backward Class votes ahead of the election, the BSP president attacked the Samajwadi Party for its bid to reach out to the OBCs, dubbing the ruling party’s ‘Samajik Nyay Yatra’ (social justice yatra) as an eyewash. The SP government had a history of misleading and deceiving the OBCs, Ms. Mayawati alleged.
Stating that the SP government had failed on all fronts, she said the present regime had lost the confidence of the people. Since there was an ‘understanding’ between the SP and the BJP, the real culprits in the Muzaffarnagar and Shamli communal violence had not been arrested, she alleged.
On SC status
According to a BSP spokesman, Ms. Mayawati gave instructions for fine-tuning the poll preparedness. On the SP’s social justice yatra, the spokesman said in 2003-07 the Mulayam Singh government issued a notification to enable 16 Backward Castes to get quota facilities applicable to the Scheduled Castes, notwithstanding the fact that giving SC status was not in the State’s purview. Only the Centre had the power to grant SC status under Article 341 and 342 of the Constitution, he said. When the BSP came to power in U.P. in 2007 a letter, dated March 4, 2008, was sent to the Prime Minister by Ms. Mayawati for including 12 Backward Castes in the SC list, it was added.
