Maya plays to votebank, cuts Katiyar short

With more protagonists of the Hindutva within the BJP being given prominent posts, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati fears a sense of in...

With more protagonists of the Hindutva within the BJP being given prominent posts, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati fears a sense of insecurity building in her new-found Muslim votebank and has decided to take the bull by the horns.

‘‘The Ram temple in Ayodhya could be in the BJP agenda but it is not in the agenda of the coalition government led by me,’’ Mayawati told newsmen at her party office on Sunday.

	15 babus shifted night before transfer ban
LUCKNOW: In a major administrative reshuffle on Sunday, the Uttar Pradesh government has transferred 15 senior IAS officers, an official spokesman said. A last-minute spurt of transfers before Chief Minister Mayawati’s ‘official ban on transfers except under special circumstances’ comes into play. Consider this: Ram Adhar was DIG with the Indo-Nepal Border Police Post. Then one morning he was asked to move as DIG, Personnel. The same evening he was told he would be in the Intelligence Department. Now he waits for a posting that could take days if the official ban is enforced. There are at least a dozen senior officials who have been given three to four transfer orders over the shortest while during Mayawati’s regime. Though there is no official record available, there have been more than 550 transfers of IAS and IPS officials so far. — ENS & Agencies Story continues below this ad

She made her statement a day after state BJP chief Vinay Katiyar announced in Ayodhya that his elevation in the party meant the BJP had agreed to his Ram Temple agenda. A visibly angry Mayawati said she would favour a mutually acceptable solution on the issue or would wait for the court verdict. ‘‘I would like to make it abundantly clear that my government is not going to make an initiative for the dialogue to find a way out of the Ayodhya impasse,’’ she pointed out.

‘‘I have directed my party workers not to get involved in any confrontation with the BJP workers. Our government will complete its full term,’’ said Mayawati.

The new BJP chief on his part told his supporters in Ayodhya on Saturday that he would not tolerate humiliation of the BJP workers at any cost. ‘‘Any misbehaviour with the BJP workers will be a personal attack on me. But this government will complete its full term,’’ Katiyar said.

In yet another move to cause pinpricks to the BJP, the BSP has also appointed a backward leader (Kurmi) as its state unit chief. This is for the first time that a leader not belonging to a particular sub-caste (read chamars) among dalits has been given a high post. The move was an answer to the BJP which has also elevated Vinay Katiyar, a kurmi, to state party chief.

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Later, Mayawati told her party workers efforts being made to fill government posts as per the old reservation formula and assured them the exercise would be completed within two months.

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