On her 64th birthday, Mayawati blames policies of both BJP, Cong for common man’s plight

Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, January 15

Bahujan Samaj party president Mayawati on Wednesday mounted a scathing attack on both the BJP and Congress blaming their policies for the plight of the common man.

Addressing a press conference on her 64th birthday, she, however, reserved the caustic comments for the Congress describing it as “deceitful” and indulging in “telling lies”.

Defending her party’s opposition to the NRC-CAA, Mayawati hit out at the Congress for “spreading lies” and claimed that soon after it was passed in the cabinet she was the first to issue a press statement about the confusion of the CAB which appeared to be divisive, unconstitutional and targeting a particular religion. She said she had raised her voice when even the Congress was quiet.

“I had asked the central government to send the bill to Parliament’s standing committee where members of all political parties could review it, improve upon it and pass it with consensus. But the government did not heed to this and my party opposed it in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha,” she said.  

Defending her party for not taking to the streets on the issue, she claimed that the BSP is a disciplined and cadre-based party which believed in peaceful politics and not dharna and demonstrations. “It is well known that immediate action is taken against those who cross the party line,” she pointed out.

Hitting out at the BJP for its “wrong policies like demonetisation, GST, NCR, NPR and CAA, she advised the BJP government at the Centre to resist from such steps which had troubled every section of society and focus on their core agenda of development.

“Small businesses have packed up in cities due to which there is largescale reverse migration to villages where there is no work, leading to unrest among Dalits, adivasis and other marginalised sections,” said Mayawati.

She said her party is worried about the BJP working to help only a handful of capitalists who did not care to provide reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs in their companies.

Mayawati said the Congress had no moral authority to criticise the BJP on corruption as the Congress governments had seen corruption touch an all-time high.

“It is for this reason that their raising the issue during the 2019 Lok Sabha campaign fell flat helping the BJP return with a larger majority,” she remarked.

Describing the BJP and Congress as the two sides of the same coin, Mayawati said that due to this the BSP had remained firm on turning down repeated offers to join various central governments.  

She said that in the larger national interest the BSP had extended only issue-based support to central governments.

On the occasion of her birthday observed as Jan Kalyan Diwas, she directed all BSP workers to extend every possible support to Dalits and the poor among the upper castes.

Mayawati also released the 15th volume of ‘Mera Sangharshmay Jeevan ka Safarnama’ on the occasion. The book chronicles the activities and events of the the BSP and is released every year on the BSP president’s birthday.