Bahujan Samaj Party national president Mayawati on Wednesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party governments should be punished for their propaganda on love jihad, land jihad, hijab, madrasa, bulldozer politics etc. as the saffron brigade was making such moves to create religious frenzy and later use it as ‘vote bank’ politics.
She said the ruling party must avoid spreading hate statements but this was what was happening in Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
Addressing a meeting of all divisional and district level senior office-bearers of the party, called to chalk out a strategy for the coming elections in four states along with parliamentary elections, the former chief minister of UP said that everyone had to be firmly engaged in the preparations for the polls. She asked partymen to highlight the all-round failures of the ruling BJP like inflation, poverty, unemployment, harassment of women, electricity and water crises, increase in road accidents etc.
Mayawati said that “the government is deliberately giving fuel to casteist, communal and religious disputes to divert the attention of people from issues like inflation, unemployment, education, due to which the progress of not only the state but also the country is directly and indirectly affected”.
The BSP supremo also raised questions on the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and said that due to the decrease in the country’s exports, the trade deficit had reached the lowest level in the last five months and this was a matter of concern for all but the Bharatiya Janata Party government was ignoring it.
Mayawati also instructed party leaders to keep an eye on the activities of the BJP government and the activities of the opposition parties to deal with them.
Mayawati said that various BJP governments, including those of UP, should refrain from so-called love jihad, land jihad, religious conversion, destruction of shrines and schools, college demolition, madrasa investigation, bulldozer politics and hatred, narrow statements and actions etc.
“The atmosphere of tension and panic prevailing in the country should end so that the country firmly moves towards self-reliance,” she said.
She said that development should be of the entire state and not of special areas in some special districts like in the rule of the Samajwadi Party.
The BSP chief said that the government had failed on law and order. She said custodial killings and open confrontation between criminals had created panic among the people.