Accusing the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) for planning to eliminate her, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo charged both Centre and the State governments for harassing both Dalits and Muslims besides weakening constitutional bodies as well as media. She claimed that BJP is well aware of people anger of it’s anti-people decisions and claimed that to communalise the atmosphere just before Parliamentary elections, BJP could go ahead with the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, do a `surgical strike’ or even bring back fugitive Dawood Ibrahim to serve its electoral interests.
“BJP failed to fulfill any of it’s poll promise so now the saffron leaders had imposed undeclared `emergency’ to silent opponents”, charged Mayawati while accusing BJP leaders of doing casteist politics to harass dalits and muslims communities. “BJP is just forwarding RSS agende of casteist politics and is responsible for the suicide of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad and the Una case of Gujarat where some Dalits were assaulted resulting in outrage and protests by the locals”, she asserted while addressing a huge gathering of Party leaders and workers in Azamgarh on Tuesday morning.
Charging the BJP with fielding a Dalit associated with the RSS as the presidential candidate to garner votes, she said that because of this, Congress and other opposition parties had also fielded a Dalit candidate. BSP leader even apprehended that after unpopular decisions of demonetisation or imposing Goods and Services Tax (GST), BJP might now go ahead with construction of Ram Temple or another surgical strike just to polarise the voters before 2019 Parliament elections. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister also alleged that the BJP was misusing government machinery and agencies like the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax etc to make the country free of Opposition by creating dissension in other parties. Alleging that the BJP had again started its campaign to mislead the poor and the middle classes in view of the next lok Sabha polls and Assembly elections in some states, like it did in 2014, Mayawati said that it was now clear that the party will no longer get its ‘acche din’ (good days) back. She asked her workers to foil the BJP’s plans by exposing them in the public and claimed this “autocratic functioning
and narrow RSS agenda” can only be checked in this manner. “There are problems relating to poverty, inflation and unemployment everywhere...People will give a befitting reply to them in the coming local bodies elections and later in the lok Sabha polls,” she said. Stressing that the lok Sabha elections could be pre-poned this time, she asked BSP workers to start preparations before hand so that the party performs well in the local bodies elections, but also trounces the BJP in the 2019 parliamentary polls. Taking credit for getting the Mandal Commission recommendations implemented, she said that it was one of the conditions of the BSP for extending support to the then prime
minister VP Singh. A ‘Bharat Ratna’ to Ambedkar was another condition, she said. Interestingly attacking the BJP, Mayawati claimed that they should change its mindset towards the Dalits, Tribals and backward classes or else she would be forced to convert to Buddhism like Bhimrao Ambedkar. “I throw an open challenge to the BJP to change its casteist and communal mindset towards Dalits, Adivasis, Backwards and also those who have changed their religion or else I will also have to take a decision towards changing my religion to Buddhism,” she said in the rally. The BSP chief said that she is giving an opportunity to the Shankaracharyas, religious leaders and people associated with the BJP to change their thinking or else she too will convert to Buddhism at the right time along with crores of supporters just what Ambedkar did. Meanwhile Mayawati also took a dig at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath saying that how the state could progress when chief minister is not getting any time and is busy in “puja paath” (worship) in temples. “Even when Yogi represents one of the most backward area of the Stat – Purvanchal but still he focused more on worship than sparing time to look development”, asserted Mayawati while criticising chief minister for ignoring development. ``Yogi is either in his Gorakhnath temple or in Ayodhya or Chitrakoot. leave alone Purvanchal, the entire state cannot develop under such circumstances,” she claimed. She said that saffron brigade can go for prayers to temples in Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi to hide their shortcomings but the people would not be misled by their “religious card” and would teach them a lesson in the next elections. “The previous Samajwadi Party government was not good, but the present government is worse and is even lagging behind them,” she said. Charging the BJP with indulging in theatrics, she alleged that an atmosphere of fear and terror had been created everywhere in the name of religion and culture. Muslims and minorities are finding it difficult to sustain, so much so, that they have stopped keeping cows out of fear of cow vigilantes and even Hindus are desisting from it, she added.