LUCKNOW: Belligerent Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, on Sunday, kept up attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saying the wrong policies of the ruling party were leading to natural calamities and making people suffer.
She was referring to the sinking of Joshimath due to land subsidence in Uttarakhand. She also accused the BJP of having politicized the central agencies.
While celebrating her 67th birthday on Sunday as "Jan Kalyankari Diwas," the former UP CM called upon her party workers to start preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Currently, BSP has 10 members in the Lok Sabha but her party had put up an abysmal performance in the 2022 UP Assembly election by winning just one seat.
While many opposition leaders, including her former foe-turned-friend SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, with whom the BSP chief has again crossed swords, are making all-out effort to forge a non-Congress, non-BJP third front to take on the saffron brigade in the big battle of 2024, the BSP chief made it clear that her
party won’t be part of any alliance for the next national polls.
In fact, Mayawati has been maintaining a safe distance from all other parties and has been focusing on her core voters comprising Muslims and Dalits.
While addressing her partymen on Sunday, Mayawati said her party would neither forge any alliance for the upcoming assembly elections due in nine states this year nor for the national polls in 2024.
"The BSP will not enter into any tie-up in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka assembly election as well as the 2024 Lok Sabha election," she insisted, while stressing that "rival parties are using all tricks to stop BSP from coming to power."
Mayawati reiterated her concerns over the use of electronic voting machines in the elections. "With the use of EVM (electronic voting machines), the BSP’s voting percentage has been on a downslide contrary to the use of ballot paper when the party used to register and upward trend which was genuine since 1984.
In various countries the EVM had been withdrawn and ballot papers are being used.
It's the work of the EVM that BSP vote has decreased. I have urged the Election Commission to use ballot paper," she said.
She also targeted the Congress and Akhilesh Yadav's SP in her address. "The reservation for the OBC, SC/ST is not being implemented by the BJP government. The Congress and Samajwadi Party have also cheated the OBC, SC and ST community,” she said.