 "Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Photo: PTI")
Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday asked bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati whether she was trying to hide her corruption by using the Dalit card.
"Is Mayawati trying to hide her corruption in the name of Dalits? Is it right to call an investigation as move against Dalits? What is Mayawati trying to say. Is she trying to say that her corruption is a struggle for the rights of Dalits. It is disrespectful for Dalits," Prasad said.
Prasad also termed the allegations levelled by Mayawati against Prime Minister Narendra Modi as baseless and condemnable.
He said: "Mayawati has reacted on media's report, we haven't made any official statement regarding her deposit so far. Secondly, she has not denied report on deposit. This gives rise to a question that whether it was normal donation or money conversion."
Defending allegations that around Rs 104 crore was deposited in an account belonging to the BSP post demonetisation, Mayawati earlier in the day alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre was misusing its official machinery and trying to malign her party's image.
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"Eyeing the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the frustrated Centre is trying to harass the people. The BJP is misusing the state machinery to malign the name of the BSP," Mayawati said.
Asserting that she is herself a lawyer, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said she knows the law of the land and accused the BJP of having an anti-Dalit mindset.
"I am being targeted because I am a Dalit. The BJP has an anti-Dalit mindset. The BJP wants to harass 90 per cent of the nation's population. It does not want to end the dynasty of capitalism," she added.
Escalating her attack, Mayawati said if Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP have some amount of honesty left then they should provide details of their bank details before November 8.
(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.)
