Maintaining a silence over Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of toeing the political line of the Congress to suppress the people’s voice.
She said the anti-people stand taken by the government had brought the country in the headlines for negative reasons.
“Congress and BJP are two sides of a coin and now the act of the BJP too proves that they are also adopting wrong policies which are affecting the 130 crore people of the country,” the BSP chief said.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday on her 64th birthday which was celebrated as ‘Jan Kalyan Divas’ by the BSP, Mayawati said people of the country had punished the Congress after which BJP came to power. “Now the BJP seems to have adopted the policies of the Congress, leading to increase in the miseries of the people due to poverty, unemployment, inflation and anti-constitutional steps which will force the masses to show them the door,” she said.
“The protests against CAA/NRC in the country have given wrong and negative message to the world about a peaceful country like India,” she claimed.
On the occasion, Mayawati also released the 15th edition of her penned book “A travelogue of my struggle-ridden life and BSP movement’.
Mayawati focused her attack mostly on the Congress, saying that the party was trying to take mileage from the failures of the BJP but the people of the country were yet to forget the misrule of the grand old party.
“The BSP has never joined any Central government as it has never compromised with the anti-people ideology of the Congress and the BJP,” she said, adding that the BJP would survive only if it gave jobs to the youths and shed its divisive ideology.
“The BJP has to push industrial growth, control prices of essential commodities and end poverty,” she said.
However, the BSP chief accused the present BJP government of promoting select industrialists and said that there was a conspiracy to end reservation by handing over the service sector to the private companies.
On the occasion, the BSP chief also alleged that the concern shown by the Congress over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens was totally fake and they ware falling in line with the BJP.
“Congress’ involvement in violent anti-CAA protests is not supported by BSP as we only go for peaceful opposition,” she said.
Asking the Narendra Modi government to withdraw the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act as it was unconstitutional and singled out a particular community, Mayawati claimed that her party had opposed the bill tooth and nail in Parliament and outside.
The BSP president asked the government to clarify why it had excluded Muslims in the CAA when the Constitution gives equal rights to all.
“Why single out Muslims from the CAA. Everyone knows how the Muslims, who had shifted from India after partition, are facing atrocities in Pakistan. Should they not be allowed to come back to India like other people,” she questioned.
The former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh was also critical of the police commissionerate system introduced in Lucknow and Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), saying it was “just a drama of the BJP government”.
“Law and order in the state is deteriorating day by day and jungle raj prevails. This new system is nothing but an eyelash as law and order cannot be controlled unless there is political will power,” she said, alleging that most of the criminals were linked with the ruling party.
“You all have seen my government when MP, legislators and officials were not spared if they were found involved in crime,” she told the reporters.
During her press meet, the BSP chief did not utter a single word against the SP and her attack mostly centred on Congress and BJP.
When questioned, Mayawati said she was only talking about national parties so she was silent on SP.
She also did not gave any specific reply when asked about her party’s future strategy and whether she would go for an alliance with any party in the New Delhi assembly elections.
Later in the noon, Mayawati left for New Delhi where she was to celebrate her birthday. Meanwhile, reports of the BSP chief’s birthday celebrations were pouring in from all over the state with leaders cutting cake and distributing sweets and fruits among the poor and needy.