BJP reacting to the allegations against Mayawati levelled by her former deputy Naseemuddin has said he was merely playing the role of a "cashier", while the real "trader of Dalit votes" was Mayawati. The Samajwadi Party and Congress, however, termed the expulsion as "an internal matter of BSP".
The spokesman of the state BJP Rakesh Tripathi said, "A number of BSP leaders, who had left the BSP have levelled this allegation on BSP chief. The BSP supremo must tell the people that on whose instructions Naseemuddin extorted money and where the money was actually disposed."
"Had the BSP chief expelled Naseemuddin after he made derogatory remarks on Swati Singh (now UP minister) and her daughter, the people of the state would not have handed this defeat to BSP," the BJP spokesperson said.
SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said, "The expulsion of Naseemuddin Siddqui is an internal matter of BSP." UP Congress spokesperson Dwijendra Tripathi spoke in the same refrain. "Both Mayawati and Naseemuddin should tell the truth. Even if they refuse to tell the truth, it will gradually come out in the public domain in coming days," the PCC leader said.
BSP supremo Mayawati had carried out a major organisational rejig after the UP assembly election and launched her brother Anand Kumar in active politics making him the party's vice-president. With a view to revamp her party, Mayawati had also dissolved the existing team of zonal, divisional and district coordinators and brotherhood committees set up to woo different castes and communities like Brahmins, Thakur and Muslims.
Naseemuddin, who hails from Banda, was earlier removed as the party in-charge of UP and appointed as the MP unit in-charge after the assembly poll debacle. After the 2014 lok Sabha polls in which BSP failed to open its account, the BSP again suffered a humiliating defeat in the UP assembly elections where the party had managed to secure only 19 seats out of the total 403 seats.