Mayawati trains guns on BJP: Their Dalit, OBC leaders bonded labourers of RSS

Mayawati said BJP had appointed Kalyan Singh, an OBC leader, as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh but “he could only work on the RSS’s agenda of Ram Mandir and lost power in this effort”.

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The former UP chief minister said Modi did not do anything for Dalits in two years of his government and alleged that he was now “making several promises as elections in UP were approaching”.

(Express Photo by Vishal Srivastav)

Mayawati also claimed that while lakhs of people had come to Lucknow to mark Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, the BJP and its government in Madhya Pradesh had forced students of 200 colleges to go to Prime Minister Modi’s rally in Mhow to gather a “hired crowd”.

She accused the BJP and Congress of “using” the name of B R Ambedkar to get Dalit votes even though “they never cared for Ambedkar or Dalits’ welfare in the past”.

Reacting to the appointments of OBC leader Keshav Prasad Maurya as the BJP’s UP president and Dalit leader Vijay Sampla as the party’s Punjab chief, Mayawati alleged that Maurya had a “communal and criminal record” and always been associated with RSS and BJP who hold a discriminatory view towards the backward sections of society.

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Referring to the recent controversies involving central universities, she accused the BJP government of trying to change the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia. She alleged that the RSS’s agenda was “being forced on the students” of higher education institutes as has been seen in Hyderabad University, JNU and Allahabad University.

Mayawati also took on JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, saying that even though he considered Rohith Vemula, the Dalit scholar who committed suicide in Hyderabad, as his ideal, he belonged to the forward Bhumihar caste.

She said that Kanhaiya Kumar was associated with the Communist ideology which was “totally different from that of Ambedkar”. “While communists advocate end of economic inequality as mean to end poverty, Ambedkar said in India, poverty can not be ended without eliminating casteist and a discrimination-based social system,” said Mayawati.

She also ridiculed Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for comparing Rohith Vemula to Ambedkar, saying that it showed his lack of knowledge about the Dalit icon.

“Ambedkar should be compared with South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and BSP founder Kanshi Ram who carried his movement forward, not with Vemula… Rahul Gandhi’s remark was like him being compared to Jawaharlal Nehru,” she said.

Mayawati said BJP and RSS are trying to divert the people’s attention from the Central government’s failures “by raising the issues like love jehad, beef and the slogan of Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.

She said it was not necessary for people of every caste and community to say the same slogan to show their patriotism and love for the country. “People of my party say Jai Bhim, Jai Bharat. Similarly, some people say Jai Hind,” she said.

Referring indirectly to Vemula’s suicide, Mayawati said that “even though Vemula was an Ambedkarite, Ambedkar never thought of committing suicide and fought against all adversities and atrocities”. “Dalit and OBC youths should not think of ending their lives, but struggle,” she said.