In poll season, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati trade bua-babua barbs

“It is due to your kindness that the aunt is appearing very frequently on television. She has become another BBC — Bua Broadcasting Corporation,” he said.

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Speaking to reporters later, Mayawati called Akhilesh the “babua (kid) of the SP chief (Mulayam Singh Yadav)”.

“The SP chief and his babua are knocking on every door for an alliance because they have realised that their government will not return (to power). Babua should be in UP, where people are suffering in queues, but he is moving around in Parliament,” she said.

“People standing in queues in UP are being lathicharged but the babua of the SP chief is getting the lathicharge done to please the Prime Minister instead of working for the people,” the former CM added.

Earlier this week, Akhilesh had suspended an SP and SO after taking cognizance of a video showing a homeguard cane-charging people queued up outside a bank in Kishanpur.

Both the SP and BSP are part of the Opposition agitation inside and outside Parliament against the government’s “hasty implementation” of the demonetisation. Akhilesh met PM Modi on Thursday to press for release of more funds to cooperative banks due to the cash crunch they are facing.

After the meeting, Akhilesh said that he had asked the Centre for a timeline on when the cooperative banks would receive funds from the Reserve Bank of India. “I met the Prime Minister in the Central Hall. I told him that while the entire country is in favour of the decision (to fight black money), people should not be made to suffer,” he said.

While the CM expressed confidence that his party would fight the UP Assembly elections alone and the Opposition would be wiped out if there is a ‘mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance led by SP), Mayawati said this was a sign of weakness of the ruling party.

Akhilesh declined to answer questions on SP leader Amar Singh’s remarks on his future political course, and rejected Mayawati’s criticism that the SP government was only renaming schemes and projects started by her government. “The BSP had seen all these things in dreams. We implemented them on the ground,” he said.