Will continue to take anti-BJP parties’ help on EVM: Mayawati

NEW DELHI: A month after her party’s drubbing in the UP assembly polls, BSP national president and former UP chief minister Mayawati said she would continue to join hands with other parties to take on BJP on the EVM-related issues.

Her decision to team up with other parties is a clear shift in the party’s stand, especially at a time when several regional parties are stressing the need for a grand alliance to check the rise of BJP.

Mayawati was the first to highlight the alleged tampering of EVM machines during the assembly polls, and later got support from several political parties, including the Congress.

She has also selected her brother Anand Kumar as the national vice president of BSP, a decision that will help her to negotiate with other parties in New Delhi. Anand, who is currently under ED’s lens and had showed no political ambition in the past, is considered Mayawati’s most trusted man among party leaders.

Replying to criticism that she faced for fielding a good number of Muslim candidates in UP polls, she said that several Muslims got elected by contesting from her party during 2007 polls. She also reminded party workers about BJP’s anti-Mandal stand during the VP Singh government at the Centre in the past. BSP’s support base among Most Backward Castes’ voters saw a sharp erosion in the recent polls.

Referring to the recent decision by the Yogi Adityanath government to probe her role in the sale of sugar mills, she said she is being deliberately targeted in this matter, adding that all decisions were taken by the Cabinet.