Mayawati accuses Congress and BJP of trying to destroy BSP, keeping Dalits out of mainstream

Lucknow: BSP chief Mayawati on Monday accused the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “deliberately and systematically” keeping the Dalits out of the national mainstream. The four-time Uttar Pradesh chief minister also told the media that the two parties had joined hands to destroy the movement left behind by Bhim Rao Ambedkar. Calling the Congress and the BJP “chor-chor mausere bhai”, the Dalit leader said efforts were on to politically harm her and destroy her party. [caption id=“attachment_4268109” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Mayawati. PTI[/caption] “I want to ask the Congress why did Baba Saheb resign as minister in 1951,” she said, likening it to her resignation from the Rajya Sabha in July 2017. The Bahujan Samaj Party leader accused the Congress of deliberately holding back the recommendations of the Mandal Commission from implementation for several years. She took on the BJP and said the “drama by the BJP and company” of putting up portraits of Ambedkar in government offices was an attempt to divert the attention of people. “These two parties have kept the Dalits backward, unemployed and ineffective for so long and atrocities and exploitation of these people continues.” She alleged that the BJP was now conspiring against her “to make us politically redundant” and accused it of manipulating the EVMs in the 2014 general election and in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls last year. She demanded that all further elections be held with ballot paper. She said a party which coined the slogan “Har Har Modi, Ghar char Modi” was almost made “beghar” (homeless) by the people of Gujarat in the Assembly elections last month. Mayawati added that people were coming back to her party as was evident in the recently held urban body polls in Uttar Pradesh. “People are now seeing through their game plan and very soon these casteist and communal forces will be thrown out by the people.” She claimed that the BJP might advance the 2019 Lok Sabha election and hold them along with state assembly polls of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan slated for this year. “We are prepared for this.”