Slamming BSP supremo Mayawati for her personal attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP Monday said her comments have revealed that she is facing an "imminent political failure" in the Lok Sabha elections and that she had "no respect" either for women or any institution.
BJP leader and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Mayawati instead of answering political questions raised by Modi on the rape of a Dalit woman in Rajasthan resorted to personal attacks, showing her anxiety that her party's grand alliance with the SP in Uttar Pradesh is "going nowhere".
Mayawati should apologise, the Union minister demanded at a BJP press conference in which another party leader Bizay Sonkar Shastri accused the BSP chief of corruption, claiming that companies linked to her family members have become a conduit to launder her "black money".
Sitharaman described the BSP supremo's statement as "absolutely disappointing and shocking", and asked if she believed she was the "only Dalit in the world".
There was no immediate reaction from the BSP on the corruption allegation levelled by the BJP.
In a bizarre statement and personal attack on Modi, Mayawati had alleged that women in the BJP are scared of their husbands meeting him fearing they might also "abandon their wives".
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"I have come to know that in the BJP, women leaders get scared when they see their husbands going near PM Modi. They fear that like Modi they might also abandon their wives," Mayawati said in a press release issued in Lucknow.
Mayawati should be rest assured that woman leaders in the BJP are "safe and secure", and have very professional relations with party colleagues, Sitharaman said.
The BSP supremo found her way into politics in very difficult circumstances, she said and then accused her of not taking up the cause of the Dalit woman in Rajasthan.
Claiming that the Congress government in Rajasthan did not register a case for days after the woman was raped as it wanted the Lok Sabha elections in the state to be over, Modi had wondered if Mayawati would withdraw her party's support to Congress dispensations in different states if she cared for Dalits.
"She (Mayawati) has revealed that she is imminently facing political failure. She has revealed her anxiety that the mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) is going nowhere," Sitharaman said.
Shastri, a Dalit leader of the saffron party, said it has become clear that the BSP is facing a rout like 2014 in the Lok Sabha polls and will not win any seat.
He also shared details of some companies allegedly owned by the BSP leader's relatives and asked her to explain how her income had been rising every year.
"She has strayed from the Dalit cause taken up by BSP founder Kanshi Ram and has become a 'daulat ki beti' (daughter of wealth) and 'Dalit ki beti'," he claimed.
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