BJP spread canards about BSP for giving tickets to Muslims: Mayawati

LUCKNOW: BSP chief Mayawati today charged the BJP with spreading canards against her party in the recent Assembly polls for fielding large number of Muslims alleging that Uttar Pradesh will turn into Pakistan if her party came to power.

"I want to tell members of the Dalit community, backward and upper castes that just like Muslims have maintained their faith in me on the basis of the works undertaken by us, they should also have confidence and not fall prey to canards of the BJP," Mayawati said at an Ambedkar Jayanti function of her party here.

The BJP told people that since Muslims have been given tickets in large numbers, the state could become Pakistan once the BSP came to power here and we got very little support out of this fear, she said.

"But I want to tell these sections that they neither have to fear nor get misled by the BJP and spoil their ties with Muslims in the BSP.

"I also want to tell people that I have never worked under pressure ... We had large number of Muslim MLAs when we were in power in 2007 ... We had not allowed the state to become Pakistan," she said.

Mayawati's BSP had fielded a little less than 100 Muslim candidates but managed to get only six of them elected in its most dismal showing in the UP Assemby polls. Now, it has only 19 MLAs in the 403-member house.

She said the BJP was against the backwards and it, therefore, chose Yogi Adityanath, who has the backing of the RSS, as chief minister.

"Before the assembly polls they removed an upper caste state unit president (Laxmikant Bajpayee) and appointed a backward (Keshav Prasad Maurya) in his place and gave a message upto the village level that once the BJP comes to power it will get a backward to head the govenrment," she said.

"They misled backwards but when the BJP came to power they betrayed them (backwards) and neither backward or Brahmin was made CM... told the Bhumihar minister at the Centre (Manoj Sinha) that we will make you CM and poor fellow went to Varanasi for conducting puja ... not only this, they also sidelined the local kshtriyas and chose RSS man for the post,' she said.

Referring to former CM Kalyan Singh, who belongs to a backward caste, she said, "Kalyan was first an RSS man then backward and he too was not allowed to complete his term and made a scapegoat for the temple movement."

She alleged that all political parties are now celebrating Ambedkar Jayanti for the votes of his followers.