Mayawati wants Assange in Agra asylum,he says he will be thrilled

Mayawati accused WikiLeaks of spreading “false,baseless and mischievous news” about her,her cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh,and BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra. All this,Mayawati said,demonstrated WikiLeaks’s casteist and biased mentality.

The “owner of WikiLeaks”,Mayawati said without naming Assange,was either “mad” or had played into the hands of opposition parties to damage the image of the BSP government. “The government of his country should send him to a mental asylum,or he could be lodged in the mental hospital in Agra,” she said.

She would now give even greater importance to Shashank Shekhar Singh in her government and Satish Chandra Mishra in her party,Mayawati said.

The cables describe Mayawati as “a first-rate egomaniac” and dictatorial. Her cabinet secretary allegedly told US officials that he did not think she would become prime minister. Mishra was quoted in a cable as acknowledging that she had “a penchant for personal corruption” and “a strong authoritarian streak”.

At the press conference,Mayawati criticised TV and newspapers for carrying “false and one-sided reports” based on WikiLeaks disclosures,without obtaining reactions from the concerned persons. Mishra and Singh would initiate legal action against media houses for publicising reports meant to weaken the BSP and its government,she said.

In a statement,Mishra too threatened legal action against newspapers and TV channels for carrying “false,baseless and misleading” reports without incorporating his version.

He denied he had met any US embassy official in May 2007. He said he was committed to the BSP and Mayawati’s leadership,and “attempts to create misunderstanding between him and the chief minister would not be allowed to succeed”.

Mayawati alleged that “anti-Dalit,casteist opposition leaders,some newspapers and TV channels cannot tolerate a Dalit’s daughter as chief minister of the largest state of the country”. WikiLeaks,she said,“wants to divert attention of the people from burning issues”.

WikiLeaks,the chief minister said,is a non-government website which is notorious for frequently “making misleading statements,spreading misinformation and claiming fake disclosures” across the world. Its owner has been arrested for his misdeeds,and is facing criminal charges,she said.

The US,Germany and Sweden were contemplating legal action against WikiLeaks and many governments had blacklisted it,she said. The government of India too should take appropriate action,Mayawati said.

On the disclosure — repeated by the BJP’s Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi — that an empty aircraft had been sent to Mumbai to bring back her sandals,Mayawati said,“It appears that he (Naqvi) accompanied the WikiLeaks owner in the plane to purchase my sandals.”

On Naqvi’s reference to nine people working in her kitchen,Mayawati said it appeared that Naqvi and the WikiLeaks owner cleaned utensils there.

On the reference to her weak English in the cables,she said that those who made this comment were not aware that she had obtained her law degree as a regular student in the English medium.

In a statement issued in London,Assange said,“Mayawati has betrayed the rational thought. The question is,has she also betrayed the Dalit?”

“There is no question that the documents are official papers… from the US embassy. These papers have been proven the world over,including by the aggressive persecution of our people by Washington.

“The allegations within them are made by US diplomats in their private communications back to (Secretary of State)

Hillary Clinton. If Chief Minister Mayawati has a problem with the contents of these communications,she needs to take it up with Hillary. I ask that Mayawati admit her error and apologise,” Assange said.

He added mockingly: “Should she fail to do so,she is welcome to send a private jet to England to collect me,where I have been detained against my will,under house arrest for the last 272 days. I would be happy to accept asylum,political asylum,in India,a nation I love. In return,I will bring Mayawati a range of the finest British footwear.”