LUCKNOW: Choosing the birth anniversary day of her ideologue Dr BR Ambedkar, Bahujan Samaj Pary (BSP) chief Mayawati made a major announcement of according statehood to western UP and also establishing a bench of Allahabad High Court in the region if voted to power at the centre.
While addressing a poll rally in Muzaffarnagar, the BSP chief raked up the long-pending ‘Harit Pradesh’ issue yet again. Significantly, it was Dr Ambedkar who had proposed the division of UP into three separate states — Western, Central and Eastern — for better governance.
She launched a broadside on arch rival Samajwadi Party (SP) saying that the brotherhood and amity was buried in western UP when the SP was in power whereas the BSP rule never witnessed a communal flare-up in western UP.
The BSP chief slammed both the Congress and the BJP for policies favouring the capitalists and big corporate houses. “These parties don’t have Dalits, tribals and the deprived in their agenda of development,” she said.
Notably, the BSP is going it alone in the elections keeping both the ruling and the Opposition blocs at equal distance. In Muzaffarnagar, she has fielded Dara Singh Prajapati against BJP’s Sanjeev Balyan who is seeking the third term from the constituency and SP’s Harendra Mallik, a former MP and a prominent Jat leader.
Earlier, commencing her party’s campaign from Saharanpur, the parliamentary constituency number 1, which the BSP had won in 2019, Mayawati claimed that it would not be easy for the ruling BJP to return to power because of the contradiction in their words and deeds.
She accused the BJP of lying to the public and working in the interest of the powerful.
SP fields NHRM scam tainted minister
Springing a surprise, the Samajwadi Party (SP), on Sunday, named former minister Babu Singh Kushwaha who heads Jan Adhikar Party, as candidate to contest from Jaunpur Lok Sabha seat on a Samajwadi Party symbol. Besides, Kushwaha, the SP also announced names of six more candidate including Amarnath Maurya from Phulpur, Ram Shiromani Verma from Shravasti, Bhishm Shanker ‘Kushal’ Tewari from Doomariyaganj, Laxmikant alias Pappu Nishad from Sant Kabir Nagar, Ramashanker Rajbhar from Salempur and Supriya Saroj from Machlishaher Lok Sabha seat.