Maya resents Sonia’s ‘silence’ over Joshi’s slur

Denying that her party workers were involved in the attack on Joshi’s house in Lucknow,Mayawati said,”there is a doubt of the hand of Congress itself in the incident”.

The government has ordered an impartial enquiry into the incident,she said.

She also sought to put Congress in the dock over the SC/ST act saying the provision of compensation for rape and murder victims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was made by the Congress government at the Centre and not the BSP government.

The BSP chief said if her party comes to power at the Centre it would repeal the existing SC/ST law and will bring a new law which covers women victims of all sections and ensures stringent punishment like death sentence or life imprisonment to perpetrators.

Maintaining that her party does not agree with the existing Act’s provision for monetary compensation,she said that it hurt the sentiments of Dalits but added that the states had to follow the provisions of a central law.

Accusing Congress of having an “anti Dalit” mentality,the BSP supremo said,”Had they not be having anti Dalit mentality and not been a victim of inferiority complex towards Dalits,it would have made similar provision for women of Sarva Samaj (all sections),who face such crimes as well…”

Referring to a book “Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna” penned by Joshi about her father,Mayawati said that in her book she had used very strong terms against Gandhi family and alleged that Sonia Gandhi ignored all this for “political opportunism” and made her the party chief for UP.

She said that there was strong resentment among BSP workers over her comments and they wanted to hold protests across the nation but she intervened to stop them as she did not want public to suffer because of law and order problems.

Mayawati said Thursday night’s incident at Joshi’s house was done to divert the attention of the people from her remarks.