Mayawati begins campaign with dalit theme

BSP president Mayawati on Sunday launched her election campaign from Agra with a blistering attack on the BJP, the SP and the Congress.

Keeping the focus on dalits, Muslims and the most backward, Ms Mayawati repeatedly hit out at “capitalists and moneybags”, accusing the BJP of coming to power with their support.

She also targeted Prime Minister for his “monumental failure” on social welfare front.

“The central government,” Ms Mayawati said, “has failed on all counts. Amid rising unemployment, RSS chief (Mohan Bhagwat) is saying produce more children. I want to tell him, yes Hindus will produce more than two kids, will you get them food ” Mr Bhagwat had, at a public meeting in Agra on Saturday, reportedly asked Hindus to produce more children.

Accusing the Modi government of raising issues of cow slaughter and “love jihad” to keep the minorities “under fear,” she reached out to her core constituency, the 21 per cent dalit population in the state, that she hopes will back her in the UP elections.

“In BJP ruled states, dalits are being persecuted, whether it is Rohith Vemula or Gujarat (Una incident) or what Daya Shankar Singh said about me... just like the Congress, if you go around sharing meals with dalits, it doesn’t mean anything,” she said.

“They eat food at dalit homes and present some people as followers of Buddha to send a confusing signal... The BJP’s Dhamma Yatra has flopped because dalits can see the true face of the party. Atrocities on dalits have increased considerably after the BJP came to power at the centre but no steps have been taken to check this”, she said.

She said that the BJP wants to end reservation but that the BSP will never let this happen. “The Modi government has waived off loans of capitalists and industrialists but has not fulfilled the promises it made to the common man in the 2014 elections. Mr Modi had promised to bring back black money stashed abroad within 100 days, he has assured cheap food grains for the poor but none of this has happened,” she said.

Warning people against the “communal designs” of the RSS and the BJP, the BSP chief urged the crowd of over one lakh people not to lose their cool in the run-up to the 2017 Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

Rejecting allegations that tickets in the BSP are sold for money, she said, “I want to ask our opponents, you say the BSP is a spent force. If we are finished, then why would people be so interested in buying our tickets The truth is that other parties want to malign us.”

Ms Mayawati also attacked the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, alleging that it was “run by goondas”.

She slammed the Congress for making Sheila Dikshit its chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh. “The Congress ruled Uttar Pradesh for 37 years and was voted out of power because of its wrong policies”, she pointed out.