 "Mayawati")
BSP supremo Mayawati appealed to voters on Wednesday to extend their full support to her party in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, saying it is the only well-wisher of the people of the state.
Addressing a public meeting in favour of the party nominees on the occasion of Ravidas Jayanti here, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief paid glowing tributes to Sant Ravidas.
She said the mystic poet-reformer wanted a government under which everyone got "roti, kapda aur makan" (food, clothes and shelter), but those who try to gain political mileage on his birth anniversary every year by visiting his birth place never took his message seriously.
Claiming that her party has always followed the path shown by Sant Ravidas, Mayawati recalled the steps taken by the previous BSP governments in the state as well as many historical projects for people in the poet-reformer's name.
"In order to realise the dreams of Sant Ravidas, it is very important to form the government of the BSP again. This will be your true tribute to him," she said while appealing to the voters that "in this election, instead of giving your vote to other political parties, including the Congress, the BJP and the SP, you have to give it to your only well-wisher -- BSP".
"The BSP is contesting all the Assembly seats alone to form a government with full majority, like in 2007, to free the state from the BJP's casteist, narrow and dictatorial rule," Mayawati said, assuring the voters that all of their problems will be resolved once her party comes to power.
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Those disturbing law and order will be sent to jail, the false cases registered against those staging protests will be removed and the old pension scheme for government employees will be implemented, she said.
Attacking her political opponents, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said like the Samajwadi Party (SP), the mindset of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government towards Dalits and other backward classes and their saints and gurus is evident and therefore, along with the SP, the saffron party too must also be stopped from coming to power in the state.
The policies and style of functioning of the BJP appear to be casteist, capitalist and following the "narrow agenda" of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)," she said.
Mayawati also hit out at the Congress, which ruled the state and the country for the longest period of time since independence, saying it was because of the wrong policies of the grand old party that it is now out of power at the Centre as well as in many states, including Uttar Pradesh.
The BSP chief accused the Congress of being strongly casteist and harbouring an anti-Dalit, anti-tribal, and anti-Other Backward Classes (OBCs) mindset from the very beginning and said the leaders of the party have been enacting all kinds of drama for the votes of these sections now.
She alleged that goons and rioters dominated the proceedings when the SP was in power in Uttar Pradesh.
"Crime in the state has also increased a lot under the present BJP government. Dalits, minorities and women are feeling unsafe," Mayawati said, referring to the Unnao incident and accusing the media of suppressing the truth.
She accused the BJP government of adopting a biased attitude towards minorities and alleged that the benefits of reservation are not reaching Dalits and the backward communities as most of the projects are being implemented through the private sector.
Mayawati alleged that there was large-scale migration during the governments led by other parties, while claiming that those who had migrated from the state returned during the governments led by her.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
