Her money went only to Dalit pockets

Former UP chief minister Mayawati may swear by Sarvajan Hitay,but most of the money from her Local Area Development fund in the last three years was spent on construction of roads and drains in Dalit localities in Jhansi district of Bundelkhand.

Former UP chief minister Mayawati may swear by Sarvajan Hitay,but most of the money from her Local Area Development (LAD) fund in the last three years was spent on construction of roads and drains in Dalit localities in Jhansi district of Bundelkhand.

As a member of the legislative council,Mayawati was entitled to sanction development works worth Rs 1.25 crore every year. In the years 2009-10,2010-11 and 2011-12,she sanctioned works worth Rs 3.28 crore,almost all for construction of cemented roads and drains.

According to information collected from the Rural Development Department through RTI,a total of 73 works were sanctioned from Mayawatis local area fund in villages under Badagaon,Babina,Chirgaon,Moth,Mauranipur,Gursarai and Bamor development blocks of Jhansi district. Most of the roads and drains were built near the houses of people belonging to Ahirwar caste,according to the reply received from the District Rural Development Agency. Ahirwar is the name of Mayawatis own community in Bundelkhand. Some of the works for which big amounts were spent are enlisted in the adjoining box .

A BSP leader linked Mayawatis decision to spend her LAD fund in Jhansi since 2009 to the Congress victory in the area in the Lok Sabha elections and Rahul Gandhis frequent visits,in which he invariably attacked the BSP government for neglect of Bundelkhand. However,in the 2012 Assembly polls,BSP could win only one of the four seats in Jhansi; earlier it held three.

Mayawati entered the legislative council in 2007 through a by-election and was re-elected in 2010. She remained MLC until this month,when she quit the seat to enter the Rajya Sabha.

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